


Just Say Yes

by Books_and_Crows



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Abuse of Authority, Anal Sex, Angst, Fingerfucking, Hand Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Post-Break-Up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-26
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-10 08:55:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 41,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/464487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Books_and_Crows/pseuds/Books_and_Crows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles wanted nothing to do with Derek Hale. His life was already a mess, and the last thing he needed was his ex-boyfriend back. But when he showed up bruised, beaten, and completely detached from this world on Stiles' doorstep-what else was he supposed to do? Answer: it probably shouldn't have been dragging him into his flat and trying to put him back together, and definitely not hoping Derek to return the favor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this [kink meme prompt](http://teenwolfkink.livejournal.com/3353.html?thread=2964249#t2964249) 

  
  


Lydia used to persuade Stiles to take her to romantic movies, on the basis that they were dates. Of course when Stiles ever tried anything, even of such basic of manner, or mentioned the progress of their non-existent relationship, she would turn him down. This did not defeat him of course, and every rejection he received only accelerated his belief that the more of these movies he saw with her, the higher a chance he there. 

There were a few things he learned from it, but only two of them relevant. One, that with all the money Stiles used paying for the tickets he could’ve paid off his current debt, and two, that there was this repetitive pattern. When the main love interests met, there was this connection. This very obvious sign, a lingered stare, a sudden song, or maybe everything went briefly quiet. But it was there, something that made the audience go ‘ooooh that’s the one’. 

Stiles had seen enough of those movies to have it slowly built into his brain that sure, maybe, in some part of this world (the part that had been warped by Lydia’s rom-com knowledge), that if he met someone that he was destined there would be this magical orchestra connection. It was dumb, and really girly, but hey it was nice to think about. 

This being said, when he saw the massive lump of human on his doorstep, the only song was his neighbor’s (really a nice guy, hopeful but failing musician) mutilated version of some Journey song on his out of tune guitar. The only lingering stare was Stiles trying to identify who exactly was unconscious(?) about three centimeters from his house. And the silence was because every one of Stiles functions had stopped so he could freak out about who the _fuck_ this was. 

If this was a true romantic movie there would have been some explanation of Stiles appearance prior to this point. It would explain his alcohol soaked vibrant red vest, his obnoxious perky bow tie which had now been loosened so it flopped down around the first button of his starch white shirt, and his eyes lined with a small stripe of black. 

Yeah, it would explain that. It would also explain how tired he looked, the red finger marks around his wrist, and how the inside part of his lips had small bumps and tasted like blood when he ran his tongue over it. But then again if this was a movie, the focus should be on why there was a person on his doorstep, and who he was. That would be a far more interesting route to take.

He crouched down next to the man. Who reeked. Like even worse than the time Stiles had been vomited on. He smelled like blood and sweat, and Stiles could see a long red stripe across the skin of his ripped black tee-shirt. With a push that required a very arduous amount of strength, he turned the limp body over. 

Of course, normal people would have called the cops before trying to identify who the body was themselves. But Stiles was not around enough normal people to ever believe that was the proper route. 

Even if it wasn’t dawn (the earliest he had gotten home all week), even in the dead of the night, Stiles would still be able to recognize that face. 

A little aged definitely roughed up with bruises along cheek bones and cuts along his jaw line. But there was no doubt. There was absolutely no doubt, that the man with his eye lids fluttering and his muscles jerking was indeed Derek Hale. 

“Holy fucking shit.” 

_

Okay, if anyone was looking, it must have seemed pretty suspicious. Stiles first slapped Derek’s face because A. he’s wanted to do that for about ten years and B. he had to make sure that he was _really_ near death. Or near death enough for Stiles to take him by the wrist and drag him into his flat, and lug him onto his sofa which was only successful on the third attempt. 

Sure, Stiles thought about calling a hospital or anyone else on the fucking planet, but there was this thing that would complicate that plan. 

Derek was a werewolf. And as Stiles learned throughout the years, that was not easy to explain. Especially because you know he should be healing, and Stiles couldn’t really explain to nurses why his main concern was that Derek was not healing. 

“Hey this is Stiles, uh so I would leave a voice mail, but I don’t really know what the hell is going on aaaaand I honestly have no ide-“

There was a low groan that vibrated throughout the walls. A pain-filled groan followed, seconded by the sounds of limbs shifting and his couch squeaking. 

“S-so call me back, yeah.”  His voice trailed off, and when Scott picked up his phone, even though he could be a little (a lot) oblivious to most things in life even he would be able to pick up on the increasing distress and then distraction. Hopefully. His best friend wasn’t really that much of an idiot. Right? Right. 

Stiles figured that the groan wasn’t really a sign that he needed to like, check on Derek or anything. He could totally just sit here and eat his ramen noodles, and figure out what was going on with his life. Yeah, it wasn’t like that was a cry for help or anything. Nope. And why did Stiles exactly help him this far? It wasn’t like Derek had ever done him any favors. In fact, if anything Derek had made his teenage years ninety percent more complicated than it needed to be. Stiles still looked upon the man lying on his couch with utter reproach. 

A kind of hatred that started in the pit of his stomach and worked his way up to his beating heart, the kind Stiles had never felt for anyone else before. Except for maybe his ass-wipe of a boss. 

But there was another feeling still lingering there also, a feeling that brought a rush of heat to his cheeks, and sweat drip down his neck. 

Well, fuck. 

Stiles needed to sleep for one thing; he really _really_ needed to sleep. Right when he was about to retire to his bedroom, because also the sight of Derek’s wounds that he did not know how to treat were making him nauseas, there was another low groan. 

Judge him all you want, sure yeah, most people would be rushing for first aid and freaking out. Stiles was freaking out, just in his ‘I worked a twelve hour shift and my life already sort of  sucks’ way, and the only medical supplies he carried was a box of fifty cent batman band aids that would probably not even wrap around Derek’s finger. 

So, Stiles would sleep, and if Derek was still on his couch, and not healed in the morning then that would be something to worry about. 

Except this time there were definitely words that went along with it. “Stiles”.

He froze in the hallway. Okay, Derek could have been referring things. These styles of t-shirts aren’t working for me, yeah that could totally be it. 

“Stilesssss.” 

Oh great. 

Stiles approached Derek like he was walking on ice. He toed across his disgusting filthy carpet like it was going to split into pieces with the wrong amount of pressure. But when he reached Derek’s side (who wasn’t that taller than Stiles but who’s general body mass did not seem to fit onto the couch) he stopped and gave the man a gentle poke in the cheek. 

To which Derek responded with a growl, and grabbed Stiles’ finger so hard he could feel the bones rolling. Stiles yelped, “Derek!” 

This brought him out of his sleep/coma/whatever that thing was and he shot up with such a force that Stiles stumbled back. He almost toppled over his coffee table too, but this was because of surprise of something else. 

If he remembered correctly, in the past, when Derek looked at him it was with a mixture of anger, irritation, and at rare times sympathy. But this time, there was nothing. 

Derek stared into his eyes with a limp stare; in fact they didn’t even look like eyes anymore, just the resemblance of them, as all life that they were supposed to express was gone. The most despondent look filled them, and it was as if a painted cut out had replaced what should be a semblance of emotion. 

Stiles swallow was the loudest thing in the room. “H-holy fuck.”

It was like he had turned into a zombie or something worse, Stiles couldn’t even imagine. It reminded him of the expression his father had when Stiles’ mother’s heart beat finally ceased. Or when he used catch a glimpse of his own face in the mirror after a nightmare. 

“Stiles,” He breathed out, and cringed. Stiles noticed again that his wounds were healing awfully slowly for a werewolf. Sure, they were scabbed over and showed no real signs of reopening, but they should be completely disappeared by now. Was it wolfs bane? It had to be wolfs bane. Stiles shuddered at that wonderful memory. 

He suddenly felt the urge to rub his hand over the cut, to make sure that Derek Hale was really here on his couch, and was really that wounded. And now even though his red blood soaked t-shirt now fell over the slice in his skin, Stiles could still picture it in his head. 

“So, uh well, you look pretty dead, and I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything, but uh, how did you exactly track me down, and why are you…why do you look like you were thrown into a blender? On my doorstep, I mean I know this is a pretty sketch neighborhood, but still people will think it is pretty weird that I just dragged a, well you, into my-“

“Shut up.” It was the growled, annoyed, voice that Stiles in the past heard all the time, that he was used to. And maybe, if it was only that, Stiles would have thrown him out of his house; maybe he would have told him what gave him the _nerve_ to show up here now. But he wasn’t going to. Because Stiles was a good person, he was also still afraid of Derek, and between the fact that he looked like he had been involved in a magician’s experiment gone wrong and there was a undertone of desperation-Stiles couldn’t. 

But still that did not keep his own aggression that he rarely used, “Hey I don’t know what this is, but _your_ ass is currently sitting on _my_ sofa, so my rules.” 

Something happened then that shocked Stiles. The fight was gone from Derek, whether it was exhaustion, or something else; he didn’t reply with slamming Stiles against the nearest surface or lengthening his claws as a threat. He just sighed, “Fine, just please shut up.”

Stiles mouth was agape. What?! What. Derek Hale just used the word please. _Please_. He had heard that right? This wasn’t some bizarre dream, right? Stiles pinched his arm once. Yup, there was still a werewolf sitting on his couch looking completely detached from this world. 

“Well, I got to make a phone call, so while I try to figure out what exactly is happening since you prove to be like no assistance what so ever, use the shower first. Seriously, you smell terrible. It’s like something died in my house,” Stiles laughed then, but Derek didn’t. Derek usually didn’t laugh at most of his jokes, but he didn’t even look annoyed. He looked hurt, like he was going to crumble to pieces right there in Stiles’ living room. 

“Uh…yeah. It’s down that hallway to the left. I don’t know what clothes I have that will fit you, but it’s worth a shot? I mean they may be a little tight, but hey then I can bring you around places and get free stuff!” 

If Derek rolled his eyes at Stiles’ jokes, or sneered, it meant it was funny to normal people. But it was like they were hitting an invisible force field and bouncing back with an expressionless, dead, face. As soon as Stiles heard the water running he lunged for the phone. 

He dialed Scott’s number again with furious fingers. 

Scott answered with a yawn and a whine, “Stiles? Do you know what time it is?” He could also hear Allison’s soft protest. 

“Yeah, sorry, sorry, but like this is an emergency. Like worse than the time we got caught maple syrup-ing  Mr. Harris’ car.”

Scott’s voice became significantly more alert, “What’s up?”

“Well, Derek Hale is currently in my shower, showering.” 

Scott wasn’t the best friend in the entire world. He often got obsessed with his own problems, and tended to ignore Stiles when he was in danger. However, when he did stop and listened to Stiles, he had proved to have this fierce protective side. It had increased with his wolfy-ness too, and around senior year, when Derek and Stiles had their…falling out, Scott wolfed out a bit whenever the event was mentioned. 

“Stiles, you didn’t. Tell me you _didn’t_.” 

“No! I’m not an idiot Scott! Well, yeah, I kind of am, for letting him in, but I’m not that much of an idiot. Something’s wrong with him, seriously wrong, he’s beat up and he looks kind of…I dunno dead.” 

“Oh, yeah, that probably has to do with his pack.” Scott’s voice started to sound distracted, and Stiles guessed it had something to do with whatever was making Allison giggle in the background. 

“What pack? Is there like a werewolf newspaper that I missed subscribing too? Because back in the day that would  have seriously helped.” 

Scott’s interest in the conversation was slowly fading. You would think that after they solved their problems and found a way to be together, they would be less couple-y. But it tripled what it had been over the past years. “It’s a wolf thing, like teleki-whatever, we just know that werewolves we’ve been around have died. It’s like a surviving mechanism or something.” 

Stiles voice dropped to a vicious whisper after he checked over his shoulder to make sure Derek decided to sneak up behind Stiles while that water was still running. “You assumed I fucked him when you knew his pack _died_ and you didn’t tell me?” 

“Hey! I was going to go check on him! Sometime.” Scott’s pitch always had this shrill little edge when he was trying to defend himself, “I thought you didn’t want anything to do with him either? And it’s a little weird that he went to you.”  

“I don’t. I dunno. He’s just…he’s not _Derek_ right now. He’s like nobody right now, it’s like he’s empty. I never said I didn’t want anything to do with him! I just said that, okay well, I basically said that, but there are circumstances involved now.” 

“I can pick him up if you want?” Now the difference from Scott ten years ago, was that before he wouldn’t have offered this. He wouldn’t have even brought this option up in the conversation. However, even though he offered, it wasn’t an offer at all. It was said with such reluctance, that you would think Stiles was asking him to jump off a cliff. 

“It’s fine. Really. I got it under control. I’ll kick him out when he gets out. He’s just…”

“Well, I mean his pack died,” He could picture Scott scratching the back of his head and shrugging, “He’s a mess, just don’t like let him talk you into anything you don’t want to.” 

For once in his life Scott was the wise one. It was weird to hear him be the one giving advice. But of course it was in no way clear advice, and it did not answer the question that was resting at the tip of Stiles’ tongue. Before he could ask, Scott made a quick excuse and hung up on him. 

_ What exactly does he want me to do? _

_ _ _

“I don’t want pity,” was the first thing Derek said when he entered the living room. Stiles’ shirt was stretched taut over his muscles and the pants hugged his thighs just a little too close for comfortable. His hair was damp and hung into his face. 

Stiles had to push his awareness that yes, Derek was still quite attractive. 

“What?” He tried to push past him to make his way into his bedroom, to grab clean clothing and a non-werewolf used towel, but Derek stopped him. The narrow hallway was blocked by one of his outstretched arms and his claws digging into the yoke yellow walls. One step closer and he would’ve clothes lined Stiles. 

“I know that you know, it’s obvious Stiles.” 

“But, wait, what, how, it’s not one of those smelling things is it? Because that’s seriously weird, I would appreciate it if you didn’t smell me. Go smell…someone else.” He thought about ducking under Derek’s arm, but that could end with him clubbing him on the back of the head.  He also thought about pushing through, but it would be like trying to shove a metal bar. 

“It’s impossible not to. You are by far the most poignant human in existence.” Stiles wasn’t exactly sure if that was a compliment or if Derek was just calling him smelly, “But I can also _hear_ things.” 

The uncomfortable level in the room rose to about ninety billion. Stiles shifted from foot to foot, and though he focused his gaze forward he was very aware of Derek’s dull stare boring into the side of his face. He just couldn’t meet his eyes. 

“Oh, well, I think I have a nice smell,” (Derek grunted at that) “But how much did you,” Stiles coughed awkwardly, “Hear?”

“Enough, to know that I don’t want pity from someone who still thinks I’m a jackass.” 

There were so many things that Stiles could’ve said back. He could’ve slapped Derek for one thing; he could have definitely told him that he deserved it, he could have also told him to get the fuck out. But then he imagined that look, the look Derek was making probably right now. 

And how his voice wasn’t as fierce, but it wasn’t controlled either. It sounded like that one year when Stiles was bit by most likely the whole population of mosquitoes in Beacon hills, and scratched his skin until it was raw. 

He was a grown-up, and Derek was a grown-up. He wasn’t some teenager who could get by without asking these questions, who could avoid what was important and never have serious adult conversations. So it would be fine to ask Derek why he was here, to demand answers. To try to figure out why he had picked Stiles of all people. 

Instead all he could manage was, “Well, uh I don’t have cable, and the electricity will probably be shut off pretty soon, and I don’t really have any food.” 

After he inwardly smacked himself, and Derek removed his arm to walk forwards, Stiles was able to manage, “So, I mean, I’m a pretty good pity-giver, I mean I hang around Scott for the majority of my life, so if you don’t want that, then…” 

He could end it to ways. He could tell him if he didn’t want that then get out or he could ask him what he did want, why he was here with Stiles.

“I want normal.” 

He didn’t elaborate, but instead plopped himself down on Stiles’ couch. He rested his chin on his hand, and his gaze was far away. He didn’t turn on the television but just sat there, in his own mind.  His shoulders were tense, and he made no notion to further the subject. 

Sometimes, maybe it was just Stiles, but people had this ability to tell what was happening from just the atmosphere. When Scott was chasing after Allison there were times where he didn’t need to say anything, but it was clear whether Stiles should give him encouragement or tell him he was crazy. Or times when Lydia was broken down crying, it would be clear that when she told people to leave her, it was really a cry for help, a cry for that one person who wouldn’t listen and help her no matter what. 

From those three words, and Derek’s stiff posture, his vacant stare, and his general sense of isolation from the rest of the world, Stiles arrived at an epiphany. Derek Hale didn’t want normalcy, he didn’t want a place to crash, and he didn’t want to talk about what happened. 

He wanted someone to help him. Derek right now, was the sobbing Lydia who denied anyone’s first attempt at help; he wanted someone to put him back together. But like her, he would never say it. He would never ask for help. Stiles still didn’t know why he picked him of all people, well Stiles was pretty awesome at helping people, but given their history, he was probably the most terrible choice Derek could make. 

Stiles had too many things going on. He could still feel the rough, red burn of fingers along his wrist; he could still smell alcohol on himself. This was the last thing he needed; he should just kick him out now. 

But he wasn’t going too, maybe because contrary to belief Stiles was a good person, maybe because he didn’t want a crazy werewolf on the loose, but mostly, mostly because he knew him better than anyone else. 

If anyone was going to put Derek Hale back together, it would have to be Stiles Stilinski. 

Great.  
  


  
  



	2. Chapter 2

There was a reasonable explanation why Stiles was wrapped up in his ex-boyfriend’s  arms.  Also why said ex-boyfriend’s finger nails had now elongated into sharp pointed claws that were digging into Stiles’ shoulder blades, while Derek breathed heavily into his neck. There was murmuring also with it, a pattern really, Derek would mutter something violently and squeeze Stiles’ tight, then relax his grip.

Then his breathing quickened and his claws would grow so long that small holes poked through Stiles’ thin undershirt. He could feel them scratching at the skin, and Derek begin to shudder. 

“Derek!” 

He shoved the man lightly, his hold now became bruising, and his words though still unintelligible, had this rough growl underneath them. He was holding him so closely that Stiles’ arms were being squished together in front of his chest, and began to constrict his breathing. 

“Derek!” 

Derek let out something resembling a howl, and Stiles began to panic. Sure, when he came up with this idea he didn’t think this particular scenario would happen. Stiles thought of this arrangement, because it was supposed to stop this. It was supposed to stop _this-_ what was happening right now. 

Derek was sweating now like he was breaking a fever. His body was fully twitching, and Stiles could feel his nails puncturing through his skin. Stiles tried to shift his head upwards to see Derek’s face, and he wasn’t all that surprised to see it wolfed out. 

He yelped, and growled, then finally whispered in one tangible word, “Stop.” Then his voice changed, and it was filled with a type of anger Stiles had never heard before. It wasn’t just uncontrolled, it was as if it was the only emotion he was capable of expressing. It was the type of anger that consumed someone that ate their entire being until they drowned inside of it. 

 Derek was so far gone, that Stiles could identify that just from his one word. “Get _away!_ The _treaty!_ ” It turned into a desperate dry sob. A plead, “ _No_!” Then, the screaming started again. A repetitive cycle, that by now Stiles usually interrupted. 

Stiles didn’t know how to help him. His brain searched through all of the internet articles he read-there had to be something, remember Stiles, remember. 

He could help Derek Hale. 

** \----- Four Days earlier------ **

The first time Derek woke him up screaming, Stiles almost wet himself. 

It was the afternoon when he arrived. Stiles had adapted to being a nocturnal creature. In fact, he sometimes joked about it with Scott, told him that he was turning into the vampire to his werewolf. But when they watched Underworld, the movie became about twenty times more personal. 

Actually, most werewolf/supernatural creature movies were odd for both Scott and Stiles. They would either end up criticizing everything about it, or, the most likely one, laughing their asses off. Huh, maybe he should try that with Derek. 

Derek probably wouldn’t find it funny. 

But Derek had agreed to going to sleep at eight o’clock in the morning. He had agreed to sleep on the futon also without any sort of argument. For a second Stiles was expecting one, but then there was this little zing of pain that came with the reminder that it wasn’t like they were dating or anything. 

Not like they had ever dated to begin with, but that was past history, and not something that Stiles should even begin to dwell on. 

Stiles had just finally fallen asleep in his bed in the adjacent room. It was a crummy bed, whenever he lay down it squeaked. The teal sheets were torn at the bottom, and his matching pillow case had flecks of red stains on it. For some reason he could never get them removed, maybe blood didn’t come out as easily as soy sauce. 

That was a story for a different time though. 

Derek’s screaming wasn’t normal screaming. That was probably because Derek did not _scream_. That was something Stiles did when he saw something gross, or little girls that one time when they had accidently seen Scott wolf out. Derek Hale was a very macho, masculine man, who did not scream.

This was a mixture of a howl, a growl, and a noise like fingers against chalkboard, like a scratch on the violin, like the skid sounds of a car before a crash-all that and worse. Stiles jolted awake, and ran out of his room. Because he didn’t think the sound was coming from Derek. He thought that Derek was strangling someone in his flat, which would be waaay more problematic than anything he was up for.

 However not quite as problematic as Derek being the one creating all the noise. It was especially freaky because when Stiles entered the room, there was no noise. Everything was silent, except for the usual racket of his neighbors and the street, but the wailing from before was gone. 

Then he laid eyes on Derek. He was sweating profusely, and twitching all over. His mouth was forming some sort of words, and suddenly as his movements began to speed up, the screaming began again. A hoarse cry from his throat, and the futon shook under him. 

It was a nightmare like Stiles had never seen before. 

_

_ The first arrow whizzed by Derek’s grip. Its impressive speed was unlike anything Derek had witnessed. They closed in around them, about thirty five or so hunters against Derek’s ten people pack. The faces weren’t quite intelligible; they just looked like dark shadows with wicked smiles, and clutching at weapons that would soon kill them.  _

_ He heard a thunk as one of his pack members collided with the ground as an arrow pierced his neck. That was only the start of the ambush. The arrows flew at them from all directions, and the hunters ran towards them with knives  hidden at their sides.  _

_ The fight blended in Derek’s mind. He remembered very little, except for clips of throwing hunters off of himself and his pack-mates. But right now, the details passed by him, because there was a turning point in the fight that seemed so effective.  _

_ The first spark dropped.  _

_ And the ground lit up into flames, it caught onto the branches of the trees. Some of the hunters pulled back at this, letting the suicide missioners take over. Because now the fire was spreading and circling around them, and Derek…could only try to fight through the horror as the temperature rose and more of the forest around them was engulfed.  _

_ He could hear the yelling of his sister, the crying of his mother and father, beams of wood falling. It was all happening again. This time to the pack he was supposed to lead. _

_ “They think the only way to kill a werewolf is with silver, or wolfs bane…” The taunting voice was hidden by the rising, smoke. An insane low chuckle followed it.  _

_ “But you know there’s another one, don’t you? Der-“ _

“Derek!”

Derek woke up with a poised fist and without knowing who exactly was on the receiving end, punched Stiles.

_

“Oh, ow fuck, I think my jaw is broken. Aw man what are your knuckles made of? Steel? Jesus, _ow_.” 

The closed curtains did not provide a very significant shield from the light outside. So with the streams of sunlight pushing through, Derek could see Stiles knocked backwards on the ground, with his jaw in one hand and the other trying to support himself. 

“Like steel that has been dipped in kryptonite maybe-“

It was about then that Stiles noticed that Derek was hyperventilating. He was sitting up straight and breathing in and out quickly, with no suitable pause in between. He wasn’t looking at Stiles either, just staring straight ahead. And Stiles was worried that he was having a panic attack, because Stiles knew what panic attacks looked like and this was somewhat close to it. 

Except Stiles had never experienced one waking up from a dream. 

He approached Derek slowly. He scouted forwards on the carpet along his hands and knees, and very hesitantly put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. In the past Derek had flinched away or growled at any touch that wasn’t involved in…intercourse. Something soft and comforting like this, Derek would have pulled away from. 

That’s what Stiles was expecting. He was expecting Derek to look at him like he was an idiot, and for Stiles to spend the rest of the night telling himself that he _was_ an idiot for trying to treat Derek Hale like a normal person. 

Instead he allowed it.  He melted into the touch momentarily, in fact his entire body leaned towards it, and his shoulders relaxed for a split instant. His breathing was still erratic but less so than before. 

“You okay dude? I mean I thought there was American Psycho playing in here.” 

At Stiles’ voice Derek immediately pulled away. He didn’t just pull away; he jolted away, as if Stiles was electrocuting him. 

Most people may be offended by this, but Stiles, more than anyone else, was used to it. He was used to Derek’s harsh glare now, he had totally adapted to it. Which was sad in a way, but the two of them held no romantic bond anymore-well they hadn’t ever.  It was just some fabricated teenage fantasy. 

Why did Stiles keep coming back to this? The past wasn’t important in what was happening now. Right? So Stiles should just stop thinking about it.  

Stiles slid his hands away when Derek gave him the, never touch me ever face.  

“Seriously, you okay? I mean like this is really weird that you’re here, and you still haven’t answered why you’re here with me but it’s also weird that you sounded like you were being murdered just now.” 

Derek sighed, and Stiles could see the exhaustion in his face, and the deep circles under his eyes. “I’m _fine_. It was just a dream.” Derek shrugged the hand off, and stood up off the futon. When he stretched, Stiles’ shirt rode up on his abdomen and Stiles could see the cut from before was now forming into a white puffy scar. 

It looked like it was starting to heal at least. Stiles felt the urge to jab it with his finger to see how Derek would react, but if memory served him properly, it wouldn’t be good. 

He settled for muttering under his breath, “it didn’t sound like just a dream.’ 

Derek sent him the ‘end of discussion’ face that Stiles remembered oh too well.

“It was just a dream Stiles, let it go.” 

He was about to retaliate. To yell back at Stiles that no, he wouldn’t let it go, because if you just let things go, then in the end they would come back and bite you in the ass. But he didn’t. Because, first it was very un-Stiles like, and second because he needed more information before he continued to pester Derek. 

He followed Derek’s suit, and rose off the ground. He raised both hands in the air in his expression of backing off, and cleared the pathway for him by sitting on the edge of the couch. Derek helped himself towards the kitchen, and there he investigated the contents of Stiles’ refrigerator, as if he hadn’t just freaked out on Stiles’ five dollar futon.

“Do you even eat?” He grumbled after a thorough scan and slammed the door shut. “There’s nothing in here.”

“Uh well there’s ramen in the cabinet. And I’m pretty sure there’s left-over lasagna in there. It’s the thing that looks like an alien brain.” 

Derek snorted, and before Stiles realized what he was doing, he clambered towards the door. He threw on his leather jacket, and when his hand turned the door knob Stiles called out at him, “Wait, hold on, where are you going? This isn’t the best neighborhood, and you look like a male prostitute. No offense or anything.”

That was the first time Derek smiled at Stiles in a long time. Of course it wasn’t really a smile. It was a half smirk, half grin, kind of devilish looking, and used to give Stiles a boner when someone even vaguely mentioned it. Except, this smile was vacant. There was no emotion behind it, not even the confidence or arrogance that everyone knew Derek possessed. It was like someone had forced it onto his face. 

“If you can handle yourself, I think I’ll be fine.” 

Stiles told him, through the shut door, that he was going to sleep, but of course that wasn’t what he was going to do. First he called his co-worker and begged him to tell their boss that he wasn’t coming in tonight. Because he honestly didn’t feel like dealing with his boss at this current moment, or even worse maybe he’d show up to his house and find Derek there…and then…

Stiles didn’t want to think about what happened. 

After that he slept, because, hell he was going to need all night for this research. 

Huh, just like old times.

_

Stiles didn’t hear Derek come back in six hours later, he did however hear him turn the television turn on, and only guessed that there was no way that Derek was actually watching it. 

He wasn’t sure if Derek slept that night, he doubted he did, because there was no screaming or crying or vague noise of a nightmare. 

Stiles didn’t sleep that night either, it wasn’t a problem, he was used to odd hours, but mostly because he needed all the research he could get. 

So Derek had clearly experienced some traumatic event, and also suffering nightmares from them or whatever those were. Stiles could gather that on his own. Hopefully Google search  could do the rest. 

He spent the first couple of hours reading through diagnosis on Wikipedia, scanning through articles, and editing his search, until finally he came across what was probably the closest thing that Derek was suffering. He vaguely remembered learning about it in school, about Vietnam veterans who went through the same thing. 

He researched the nightmares first, which was actually apparently, very common of people who just experienced something traumatic event. In one article they addressed how to handle it, which Stiles had spent the night looking for. 

However, he didn’t like the answer. 

It told him that he was supposed to hold Derek. It told Stiles to calm him down by just being there in his arms, or holding Derek within his arms, and whispering to him and comforting him softly. He was supposed to be gently affectionate, to _cuddle_.

Nothing about their relationship had ever been gentle. Sex had always been a battle, having sex with Derek had been like having sex with a wild animal (not that Stiles would know…but he assumed). Cuddling was out of the question, always. When they used to fuck, it was almost never in a bed, and if it was they were both out of it before the action of falling asleep together could begin. 

Stiles couldn’t do this. It was not what he signed up for. There was no way, he could lie next to Derek, hold him, and tell him everything could be okay. Hell, he didn’t think he could tell anyone everything would be okay without lying. Not when there were still bruises on his wrist and all signs of his black eye had finally disappeared two days ago.

Stiles didn’t know what he was going to do. 

_

He didn’t see Derek the rest of the night. It wasn’t that they avoided each other or anything. They were just in their own separate space. Stiles stayed by his computer, and Derek stayed in the living room. As long as they weren’t facing each other, then they didn’t need words. 

But when they could both see each other, words were needed to fill the silence, or at least according to Stiles. It was eleven o’clock in the morning when Stiles had to make a life altering decision. 

He had just entered his computer-coma. That dazed phase that happened when he had been researching for too long, and all the words began to blend in together. He began to get more and more secluded from reality and morphed into the people these articles were written by. 

When he heard the shouting again, it was time to figure out how to apply words to actions. 

In theory he could’ve ignored Derek, he could’ve just put in ear plugs and gone to sleep. Even though he joked about it, there was a slim chance the police would show up at Stiles home they had so many other crisis’s that this one would be low on the list. 

So he really could’ve just let Derek lay there, about to scream his head off, and relive whatever horrific experience had happened to him. 

Stiles was a better person that that. 

This time though he was prepared for the possibility that Derek could possible punch him in his sleep, and therefore his route was a little different than last time. He started by gently nudging his head. It was kind of gross actually. This one was worse from before. Derek’s head was covered in sweat, and Stiles’ fingertips were wet from where he touched. 

“Hey, Derek, uh wake up.” 

He woke up chocking for air. He didn’t sit up though; just lay there with his body still twitching. His eyes were wide, unblinking and locked on nothing.

It was decision time. 

Sometimes Stiles wondered that if he just walked back to his room, if things would have been different. That maybe this action he was about to do right now was the spiral cause of all the events about to come. Maybe Derek would have left sooner, maybe his life would’ve been totally different.

He didn’t think about that until after he climbed into the futon with Derek. 

It was awkward. There was only an inch of space between them, and Stiles wasn’t sure how to cuddle.  Derek wasn’t a girl, he wasn’t soft and easy to hold in his arms, and neither was Stiles. Plus he didn’t know what to do. Was he supposed to move closer? Was he supposed to whisper in Derek’s ear or something? How could he make this not so couple-y and still comforting? 

“So, this is supposed to make you feel better.” 

The comment just now brought Derek’s attention to him, and his eyes snapped towards Stiles. He still didn’t seem okay, his face was blanched, his mouth slightly open, and eyes still impossibly wide. It was just then that Stiles finally put two and two together and realized that Derek Hale was scared out of his mind. 

“I don’t think its working.” Derek answered in his familiar ‘your entire being is stupid’ tone. 

“Well, it _would_ if you were participating correctly,” He responded in his own ‘your entire being is made of jackass’ tone. 

“This is your idea.” 

Stiles moved a little closer, and in order to not forehead Derek in the nose, he adjusted position downwards so his head lay just under Derek’s chin. He moved one hand up and on Derek’s bicep and the other on the upper part of his chest. It was kind of like a hug. He tried to keep the lower half of their bodies as far away from each other as possible. Both of them were tense, their posture a little too fixed, and the contours of their bodies not quite finding the right niche. 

This was to remain non-sexual. 

He wondered if Derek was going to shove him off. If he was going to launch Stiles off the futon or punch him again. 

The opposite happened. Derek moved his own arms around Stiles to pull him closer. Stiles read that this was good, because right now, Stiles’ body was providing something real. His essence was something that was connecting Derek to this world, and separating himself from his dream. 

“See this isn’t so bad? It’s working right? Yeah, you seem better already man!” It was true, the shuddering had lessened, the erratic breathing had calmed, and Derek’s wide eyed stare had vanished. 

The growl Derek emitted rumbled through his chest and Stiles could feel it through his own body. It made Stiles equally afraid as happy, because that growl was purely derived from irritation. 

“Keep talking and I’ll rip your throat out.”

_

Once Derek fell asleep, Stiles would slip out of his iron grip, and back to his own bed. This proceeded on for the next two days. When Stiles got home from work, they ate breakfast, and went to separate beds. Whenever he heard screaming he would enter the room, wake him up, and climb in next to Derek. Sure, it helped him sleep, but for Stiles it was a killer. Being woken up so often made it difficult to fall back asleep and he woke up randomly just imagining that he heard screaming.  

It was also nearly impossible to stay still and quiet while he waited for Derek to fall asleep. It was frankly, quite boring and tiring. 

He ended up amusing himself by shutting his eyes and counting backwards from one hundred. 

So on the fifth day of his discovery of Derek’s nightmares, Stiles fell asleep in his arms. 

Now, he had always woken Derek up before climbing into bed, he had never been in the same bed, in their awkward embrace, while he was having a nightmare. Like right now. 

Derek’s claws were scraping against his back, and his arms were still trapped in between the other man’s. Unless he kicked Derek, or head butted him, waking up seemed difficult. Clearly shouting his name was not working, and Derek’s face was turning into a complete wolf. 

Stiles had never seen one of this intensity before and maybe that was because Stiles always woke him up before it could elevate to this level. 

“Derek!” He yelled, and broke his arm free to elbow Derek roughly. “Man you gotta stop,” He pleaded. 

Derek didn’t wake up in the same way he usually did. His face was still wolfed out, his claws were still drawing blood, and instead of his vacant stare his eyes were filled with emotion. They were crazed, horrified, and Stiles could’ve sworn they reflected the nightmare Derek was having. 

“Oh God, Stiles, _Stiles_.” His voice was a chocked sob, the words shaky and syllables crashing into each other. His clawed hand made its way to the back of Stiles’ neck. With a rough jerk he moved Stiles higher up onto the futon and in a swift motion slammed their lips together. 

Stiles didn’t push him away. Mostly because he was scared-not of Derek, but for Derek, what had just happened scared him more than anything in the days past. Derek wasn’t kissing him with any skill, or any particular techniques. He was kissing him with desperation. Mostly it was their lips sliding across each others, but occasionally Derek would stop and roll Stiles’ bottom lip in his long canine teeth.

Stiles let Derek kiss him; let him bite him until the wolf left. When the kiss became slightly less rough, or at least to the point where Derek wasn’t mutilating his mouth, Stiles backed off. 

He honestly didn’t know what to say. He was at loss for words. He sprung up from the futon and wiped the blood and saliva from his mouth. The only thing he could do was stumble backwards to his room, with Derek’s gaze constantly on him. 

For some reason, Stiles just couldn’t tell Derek simply that what just happened wasn’t okay, that they weren’t together-they were never together. 

Oh, most importantly, that Stiles was seeing someone else. 


	3. Chapter 3

If Stiles’ life were a romantic comedy things would have been different.  There would have been this awkward flirtation between him and Derek. They would have become more aware of each other, there would be very unsubtle-y checking out of the others bodies, and several other ‘passionate’ moments.

However, Stiles life was not a romantic comedy.  Even if it was, it would be on a level of so fucked up that people would probably leave the theater. 

Stiles thought, that the kiss proved something to the both of them. Derek had not made any advances since, and Stiles figured it was his way of saying that he had no intentions of furthering their relationship. Not like Stiles would allow that. 

Of course, they didn’t really see each other a lot. Stiles worked all night, and when he got home they both wanted to sleep. Stiles wasn’t sure what Derek did when he wasn’t there, and he should probably be mildly concerned. When they did have spare moments together, they ate, watched television, normal people things. 

It wasn’t romantic in any manner, there was always a good space between them, and Stiles always did all the talking. The only good thing about Derek living here was that Stiles had adjusted back to normal eating habits. Of course, his sleeping patterns had been mildly disturbed, but he also figured out that his neighbors became suddenly quiet in the afternoon. 

Huh, he wondered if that had anything to do with Derek. 

So overall, nothing had changed, Derek was still an emotional nub, and refused to speak about what had happened no matter how much Stiles pried. He also sometimes still spaced out on his couch, with that vacant stare of his, and Stiles would have to nudge him or throw popcorn in his face.

Nothing really had changed. 

That was a lie.

Sure, Derek made no intention to go any farther than a kiss, but those kisses did not stop. Every time Stiles fell asleep in Derek’s arms, and Derek would wake up panicked, he would kiss him. 

They would never turn anymore tender or sweet. They were always those rough kisses, with his teeth chewing on his lips, and Derek the only one participating, attacking Stiles face. His mouth never wandered elsewhere, except sometimes it would stop roughly abusing Stiles’ lips and he would just suck the air out of Stiles’ mouth and exchange it with his own in sighs. 

Maybe it could have gone farther, if Stiles allowed it. But after each time he would get up and leave the room. It wouldn’t take much effort for Stiles to just say it. He could just say easily, just look Derek in the eye, and tell him that it had to stop, because Stiles was seeing someone else. 

But he didn’t.

This was Derek Hale, the man who had changed Stiles ideal of love and relationships for good. But when he looked so frightened, startled, and _broken_ ; even Stiles wasn’t that heartless. 

Every night it became a pattern; Stiles would push him away and go back to his own bed, with a migraine. Stiles had to choose between; well it wasn’t necessarily lying, but not telling the truth to Derek, and hindering him from getting better. 

The day that he actually had to make the choice was not a good one. 

_

They were watching a movie, and maybe in actuality it was the movie that started everything. It was one of those dumb ones that he had rented just to see how long Derek would go without making him turn it off because it was so completely stupid. His reaction was not exactly that.

There was this one scene, the main character and his kick ass best friend get involved in a fight with two other guys. Things got ridiculously serious, the knife that one guy used looked like rubber, and the blood one of them spurted was the equivalent of ketchup. 

It wasn’t going to be a big deal, and Stiles already knew that the character would recover within thirty seconds, because it was that kind of movie. 

But all of a sudden Derek went still. Now Derek was already generally as a person, pretty still. Stiles figured he had obtained this skill by mastering creepy. Derek hardly made normal breathing noises, and even when he adjusted positions it was with the least possible sound. 

Stiles was only able to notice that something was wrong with Derek, because he had been around him for so long. The change in atmosphere was something entirely different. Derek asserted this constant dominant presence, this overwhelming sense that everyone’s ideas and beings were incomparable compared to him. It radiated off his body, like a pheromone or something. 

Suddenly that was gone. 

Stiles looked over at him and saw Derek frozen. Not a muscle in his body was moving, everything was tense and tight, and he was staring at the screen with the look he got when he woke up from the dreams. He was gone-in his own world re-living whatever had happened before. 

Stiles wanted to know, wanted to be a part of it, he was never a patient kid, and he didn’t like to wait for Derek to open up. He used to say that he ignored problems until they went away. But could he even do that here? Neither of them liked talking about anything, that’s how their non-existent relationship fell apart. 

He moved over, and patted Derek’s arm. “Hey uh you okay? I know this movie is shit, but I mean, it’s not that bad.”

It was like some sort of horror movie. Derek spun towards him, and his face was completely wolfed out. His eyes were a vibrant red, and teeth pulled back in a snarl. Stiles launched to the other side of the couch. 

Stiles waited for his heart to return to normal people speed, and calm down from the scariest fucking thing he had seen in awhile before speaking again. Well not scary really, he was used to the wolf by now, but shocking more like it. 

“Woah, calm down wolfy. We can talk about it?” Stiles was really trying his best not to sound like a therapist. “I’ve heard that helps. I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure it doe-“ 

Talking was obviously not what Derek had in mind. 

 Derek leaped on top of him. Stiles head hit the raised edge of the side of the sofa, and for once he was glad it was made of cheap suspicious felt like material and not leather, because he was not up for getting a burn on the back of his neck. 

He didn’t kiss him like before. He didn’t even go near his mouth. Instead his teeth latched onto Stiles neck. They didn’t break skin, but instead stretched the flesh around his jugular out so he could suck on it and rake the points of his teeth up and down across it. 

His hands were all over, while Stiles’ just laid at his side in shock of what was happening. Derek’s fingers worked under Stiles’ shirt. They flung the material up and he began to press his thumbs into that sensitive dip of Stiles’ hips into his abdomen. Then he’d angle his fingernails upwards and dig them into it. 

Oh, hell no. 

“Derek, wait, this isn’t okay, this is significantly less than okay.” Derek didn’t stop, and most people, would be more panicked in this situation than Stiles. But he wasn’t, not that much at least, which he wasn’t sure if it was a good or bad thing.

 “I know something’s up, but this isn’t the way to deal with it, you can’t just do _this_.” 

Derek’s hands worked their way up to grab Stiles’ wrists. He was struggling now, shifting his hips, and flailing his arms in whatever ever allowance he had under Derek’s grip. He would’ve raised his knee to kick him in the balls, but it was immobilized by Derek’s own leg. Even though they were close to the same height, Derek’s general body mass and strength was so greater than Stiles-it was incomparable.

“Seriously! I’m not fucking around! Stop and listen for a second will you! I wasn’t going to force you to talk about this, but clearly there is some emotional thing going on and I know that sucks, and I’m trying to help, but you can’t do this, we need to speak actual words. Like adults! This isn’t the way to deal with this!” His voice was turning shrill, especially when Derek’s one hand left his wrist and started to unbutton Stiles’ jeans. 

“I didn’t let you stay here so we could fuck, I’m not some horny teenager anymore and neither are you, and this is _wrong_. There are better ways to deal with this.” 

He knocked Derek across the top of his head with his elbow, and it was either that or his words that provided a wake-up call. Derek did back off.  His features morphed back to human, and he moved off of him just enough for Stiles to pull his legs out from underneath him and with a chaos of limbs brought them to his chest. 

They both moved to their respected ends of the couch facing each other and then there was silence. 

As always, Stiles was the first to break it, “Christ. I don’t know what’s going on with you, and that whole wolf-intimidation-sex thing won’t work anymore, not like it used to.”

 His words were getting faster and faster, and he was losing his very ability to control what he was saying. “I’m not a kid, and I’m not afraid of you, so if you want to stay here-if you want me to help you, you better get your ass in check because I’m the one harboring it.” 

There was confidence burning through his veins, the kind he always got when he stood up to Derek. Strange confidence and pride mixed with fear. “And, and I’m seeing someone.” 

Derek sneered, a look that was one of both utter disgust and surprise, and definitely disdainful. Then one eyebrow raised, and to Stiles’ absolute disbelief he ignored most of what Stiles just said, “You’re seeing someone? _You._ ” 

There was something else in his tone, always that vague taunt when Stiles stood against him, and the quips that always came afterwards. 

It made Stiles absolutely furious. He wasn’t awed by Derek’s arrogance, or his abilities. Long ago, around eight years ago, he was aware that he was a jack ass who had changed Stiles into a different person, maybe a person he didn’t want to be. 

“Yeah, I am.” Derek wouldn’t pry right? He couldn’t pry, because Stiles’ didn’t want to offer any more information, he didn’t want Derek to know any more. Because who knows what he would do. 

While as much of a bastard Derek was, he was also fiercely protective, and that was one of the reason Stiles was originally attracted to him. Stiles knew that no matter the state of their relationship, Derek would kill anyone who tried to hurt him. 

So basically Derek knowing anything about his love life would be a disaster. 

“Really? Who is she, or he should I say?” There was that smirk. That smirk that reminded him of the old Derek, and to Stiles horror he felt a little relieved that the he was back for a moment. That mean playful Derek, who in the past Stiles fell in lov-lust with. 

“You slept with him yet? Finally gotten to compare werewolf to human?” His expression was feral. 

A flush spread from spread from Stiles neck to cheeks, “Shut up. You’re being an asshole.” 

Despite the serious conversation Stiles had just given him on personal boundaries, Derek kind of violated them. Sure he didn’t move any closer, but his voice dropped into that voice, that pitch you used when you were whispering into someone’s ear. “Which one was better?” 

Stiles had enough. He jumped off the couch and turned his back to Derek. He frisked through the fridge and popped open a soda once found. He answered Derek after a long gulp,  “You know it’s not something that I really talk about with people, plus there are some significant difference-and no, we are totally off subject from what we should be talking about.” It was surprising how dramatically this had shifted from before. 

If there was one thing about Derek Hale, is that if he was stuck on a subject he would never let it go until he received an answer that suited him. Just examples of werewolf business in the past had been enough, constantly hounding Scott about joining his pack or training or both. 

He was persistent, not as much as Stiles, but still.  Sometimes, he didn’t even need to say anything. He just had this way of looking. His eyebrows raised ever so slightly, and his mouth quirked to the side. It was obnoxious how effective it was. 

“Look it, I don’t know, we weren’t even like a serious thing. What does it matter? There had to be someone in your pack who you did the same thing as me.” There was that word vomit. Something that Stiles could not control when his filter just disintegrated. Over the years he had thankfully gotten better at cutting himself off in the middle of it. 

Derek still picked up on the meaning. His face contorted, nose wrinkled, mouth turned downward in deep frown, and eyes returned to that wide eyed vacant stare.  He grabbed his leather jacket off of the counter, and sent one glare at Stiles, before he ran out. 

“I have _no one_.” The way he said it was a little cheesy and over dramatic, something that would be said in a movie when introducing the angst filled new character. It was strange to even hear, and in any other situation it would have made Stiles a little baffled at the lame-ness. 

But there was no better way to say the situation, because now that Stiles thought about it, Derek was now absolutely totally alone. He had no one left. 

The door slammed shut behind him. 

Stiles shouldn’t go after him. What had just occurred was above the Jackson level on the douche bag scale, a number higher than anyone had gone. After what he did, Derek deserved some time alone. Right? 

There was one very graphic article he read. It was written in the perspective of a wife whose husband was experiencing traumatic nightmare. She wrote, that some nights when he woke up screaming he asked her to hold him and help him forget. 

 Stiles hand rubbed the sore spot on his neck, and the other on the thumb prints on his stomach as he thought about how maybe Derek Hale and the husband from the article weren’t so different. 

Stiles knew what someone looked like when they wanted to _hurt_ you. He knew what it was like to have someone raise their fist with a grin and pleasure in their eyes. That wasn’t Derek. Stiles in no way believed that Derek would have hurt him, because no matter what people said, no matter how bad of a guy he actually was, no matter how much he threatened, he wouldn’t hurt Stiles. 

That just wasn’t…It wasn’t how Stiles remembered. 

Maybe, maybe, Derek just wanted to forget too. He just couldn’t ask for it, because this _was_ Derek. Weakness wasn’t his thing, vulnerability was a foreign concept. Asking for help, especially,  was a theory that did not exist in his mind. It still wasn’t okay, there were unstated rules broken, things that still need to be said, but he thought that maybe Derek wanted to forget. 

He just didn’t know how to. 

Stiles downed the rest of his soda and grabbed the keys to his jeep.   



	4. Chapter 4

Stiles didn’t know how long he looked for Derek. He drove along all the back roads of his neighborhood, he stuck his head out the window, yelled Derek’s name, and whistled a few times. He got pulled over once, by the elderly woman who lived a block or two down and let Stiles stay the night once when he was obviously in no condition to drive.

She asked him if she could assist him in looking for his dog, Stiles had trouble explaining that it was his ex-boyfriend. 

Stiles began to wonder if something had happened to Derek. Stiles was finally able to make that trip to Costco so _at least_ he didn’t look like a male prostitute anymore, nope he was back to his black t-shirts, serial killer appearance.  

Clearly, he should be more worried if Derek had done something to someone else. 

He didn’t realize that it had been a really freaking long time, until his phone rang. 

“Where the hell are you man?!” His co-worker Nate screamed into his ear. Nate was a good guy, one of the few friends Stiles had at work, but also he was incredibly unreliable, erratic, and a bit of a crook. Then again, the place where Stiles was employed was filled with crooks. 

Well crooks, and out of college students that were _drowning_ in medical and student loans debt. 

“I’m uh out and about,” His voice was rising to squeaky level, “lost track of time. That happens you know when you’re out and about…” 

“ _You?!_ Stiles what’s up with you? The last time you missed a day of work was when you were barfing up the bad Chinese food restaurant we tried, and you were late was ‘cause of that big accident on the freeway. You’ve been gone twice over the past month, with no warning.” 

Stiles could hear the noise in the background and Nate shifted the phone to his shoulder so the sound would be muffled as he yelled at someone behind him. 

“Look, Nate,” He started to beg, “I know I’ve been really uh what’s the word, cryptic? I guess that could work, lately. There’s totally a reason for that, and I’ll explain it’s just right now is a really bad time.” 

“So you want me to cover for you. Well, well, well Stilinski how the tides have changed.” There was a teasing arrogant tone that Nate used constantly. Stiles’ could just picture that triumphant smirk. 

He rolled his eyes, “Yeah, well I cover for you all the time and I do that because I’m a good person, and you know who should be a good person now, Nate? You.” 

“You owe me, and the Boss man will probably find out anyways so you’ll probably end up working overtime still. Wow, Stilinski, what kind of mess have you gotten into? Got some girl you’ve been keeping secret?” 

When Stiles found Derek he thought it would be in some really significant spot. Some secret place that held a deep meaning to both of them. Maybe Derek would be in this super romantic spot to try to win him back, or standing in the gateway to Narnia, or in front the bridge to Terabithia. 

It would be inspiring, and alter the entire dynamic of their relationship. 

Instead he was crossing the street to a Denny’s. 

“Derek!” 

Nate’s voice was still on the other end, “Derek? _Well_ you have certainly been keeping something from me haven’t y-”

Stiles may have mumbled some goodbye, but it was completely unintelligible, as he threw the phone on the seat and swerved into the nearest parking lot. 

_____________________________________________

Stiles always pictured Derek as a steak kind of guy. Like the meat was still half alive on the table, or something that he could rip off the bone. Some very manly manly food. Wolfish. So it was a little surprising to see him heading for a family-themed breakfast place. Now looking back, he could’ve very well been heading past it, to somewhere else along this strip of restaurants, but it was more amusing to assume not.

His park job was terrible, and Derek was standing there with that small hint of amusement. It was nearly unidentifiable except for the quirk of the mouth of the slight crinkle in the eyes. 

Stiles stumbled out the jeep, and ran up to Derek. The neighborhood wasn’t brilliant. It was dirty, the sidewalk filled with grime. Several of the street lamps were broken and the lights were dangling from power lines that were bound to go out. There was not a high population. It was on an outskirts of the main attraction of Vegas, but just too far from other neighborhoods to be considered non-casino/tourist territory. 

Stiles knew nearly everyone here. That was half because of his job, half because he had developed this uncanny ability to attract people, of strange sorts, and everyone was strange here.  It was like he gained some sort of magnet after the whole werewolf affair. People knew he had been through some out-of-this world shit, and figured that he could take anything they gave him. 

It was not the best quality to have. 

He received several strange looks when he bolted up to the very large man that could very well pose as a serial killer. 

He waved to the woman who was sending him looks like ‘honey, are you about to be tied down and thrown into the back of your jeep’?

Stiles would be quite embarrassed to admit that it had happened once but under completely different circumstances. 

“Hey, what are you doing here?” 

They stepped away from the parking lot and to the alley between the restaurant and the adjacent building. It was weird, they knew each other so well that they both were sure that would be the only place they could converse without being given strange looks, or where the cops wouldn’t be called because of the violent actions that could and usually did occur. 

“ _Clearly_ ,” Derek used his impatient, I’m an awesome Alpha voice, “I’m eating something, what are you doing here Stiles?” 

The answer was obvious. But Derek in short terms, was a dick. A dick and a hypocrite. Derek liked nothing more (well, okay there were some things he liked more) than having verbal evidence that he had succeeded in what he wanted to do. 

“ _Clearly_ going after my temperamental ex-boyfriend werewolf, who when he usually storms out of places angry destroying, roar, things happen. That’s a good question anyways, why aren’t you all you know, Derek angry Derek smash.” 

Then Derek, who had to have this conversation planned for the past few hours casually said with a smirk that could beat all other smirks in a duel, “Your boyfriend.” 

Stiles’ rolled his eyes and fell right into the trap that had been so elegantly, and as suavely as Derek ever was, set up, “Okay, weirdo, yeah that’s what this whole thing arrived from the first place, are you going through menopause or something?” 

Derek pulled the stick, cut the rope, snapped the latch, placed the last leaf over the hole, and with a triumphant statement that had to be the reason it took so long to find him, he finally answered, “I don’t see him anywhere.” 

Stiles mouth gaped like a fish. His lips widened into a perfect oval and his eyebrows scrunched together in a downwards direction incredulously. He pulled back a bit, just enough space for him to throw his arms up in the air before shoving them in the back pockets of his jeans. 

“Fine. You win. I admit defeat to the grand Derek Hale. I have nothing to say to you.” Then after a brief pause, in which Derek relished the moment of finally making Stiles Stilinski lose all powers of speech, he concluded, “Now take me to dinner you bastard.” 

________________________________________________

It was about the time after they ordered that both of them realized that when sitting alone together in an inappropriate arguing space, with no movie or distraction on, that they had nothing to talk about. Most people could go for the, haven’t seen you in almost ten years! We have some catching up to do! But they both knew what the answer to that question was, and it wasn’t very…topical. 

So instead Stiles said the first thing that came to his mind, “Wow, I haven’t eaten here since my dad…” He shut his mouth. What was Derek supposed to say? He wasn’t a normal person; did he even have those normal conversation manners? How did Derek speak when times like this came up?

Stiles didn’t know, because in the past whenever there had been a silence between them where chatter was supposed to go, it was instantly filled with sex. 

“Do you want me to say I’m sorry?” He asked as if talking to an annoying child. 

The plates were placed in front of them, and whatever the waitress said was lost to his ears. Their booth was towards the back, and even then people were still turning around to stare at them occasionally, because Derek had never looked more out of place than right now. 

“Is this a trick question?” He approached cautiously, and stabbed a solid forkful of the mountain of pancakes he ordered. The eggs were a little slimy, but looked significantly less greasy than Derek’s omelet that was filled with every type of meat on the planet. 

“What?” 

“If I say the wrong thing, will you flip this table and I’ll never get to finish my pancakes?” He spoke with his mouth full.

Derek was actually quite the elegant eater. Stiles expected him to just go at it, tongue, plate, wolf style, but he looked as refined as anyone could while eating an omelet. 

“I’ve never done that.” 

“Well not to this table at least, anyways, now clarify.”

Derek huffed at having to repeat himself, “Do you want me to say sorry for what happened?” 

Stiles was going to point out that clarified nothing at all, but it was like a circle with Derek. A never ending loop of getting no answers what so ever. So Stiles responded with, “Isn’t that what normal people do?” 

“It’s useless.” 

Stiles snorted. _Well Mr. Hale if you thought that originally, it may have been more convenient to vocalize it sooner._ Then there was that dead end, that place where Stiles was scraping for words that could lengthen this conversation without furthering to confuse him. 

“If he died would you?” 

Derek stopped eating, and placed his fork at the side of his plate. His eyes shifted to the left upper corner and he made a grimace that displayed a sliver of his teeth. 

It was almost like he was thinking about a suitable answer. Usually Stiles assumed that he either had them piled up or just spoke whatever first came to mind. 

“No, probably not.” 

Stiles sighed overdramatically, and pushed his empty plate away to bury his face in his hands. He was grinning though, not because anything was funny, but more of the ridiculousness factor. “You confuse me. You’re like an enigma shoved inside a Rubik’s cube. If I ask you to explain will you do so properly, or has this gotten even more pointless?”

There was the slightest of smiles. Despite for Derek looking like he killed people, being angry most of the time, also incredibly bossy, and a general disagreeable person-his smile even just the flicker of one was absolutely _infectious_. Stiles returned it wide and whole heartedly. 

“Pointless. Saying sorry doesn’t help anything.” 

“How would you know?”

Derek just raised his eyebrows. Stiles almost smacked himself in the forehead. Derek must have, especially when he was a kid, gotten dozen of people coming up to him apologizing for his loss, or various form of ‘I’m sorry’. He probably couldn’t even bring it up without looks of pity. 

“Because sorry doesn’t change the past.” 

Stiles was caught between calling Derek out on posing as like a philosopher or something, and saying sorry. He was however completely caught off guard for what he was about to say next. 

What Derek was about to say slyly over the corner of his coffee cup before taking a swallow, “wouldn’t help misunderstandings or forgiveness, I guess it could be called.” 

Stiles mouth fell open into an identical position as before. He wasn’t an idiot; he knew exactly what Derek was speaking of. It was impossible not to, not when they were them. But why now? Why when Derek was still pissed, when he was going through something that was completely messing up his head, why when Stiles was in a relationship, and most importantly after ten-ish years?

It was time to place a call to Lydia. 

He swallowed thickly, and as Derek took the check (because they both knew Stiles couldn’t pay for shit) he rambled, “You’re wrong, that’s why sorry was invented. It’s like ‘yes’, people invented yes to agree to things, and sorry was invented to convince people to say yes when someone asked if they were forgiven after sorry.” 

From that cluster of words Derek got, “If we both said it would you…?”

The question didn’t need to complete. Just like before, Stiles knew exactly what Derek was referring too, but this time he knew how to properly respond. 

“Would you even?” His voice was hushed, with the slight irrational fear that someone as they walked out the door would overhear them and instantly know their whole situation and history. He didn’t even make eye contact, just stared at the tiled ground. 

“No.”

Stiles was relieved, because if Derek had, it wouldn’t have been very Derek-like. If Derek opened his mouth in an apology and waited for Stiles to make one of his own, it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be them. It would be too touchy feely, too emotional, too girly, and too easy of a solution. 

“Then no, I guess.”

_____________________

The rest of the car ride was only filled by the static radio. To Stiles’ extreme irritation, Derek did not take the duty of shot gun to change the station. Their previous conversation was something that weighed them both down. It bogged on their conscious and any sort of other words that could be spoken required more of an effort than usual. 

That silence continued on while Stiles rushed to get ready. He flipped on his vest, tied his bow as quickly as possible, and applied the eyeliner with such fast skill that he was embarrassed he was able to do so. When he was running out of the door, something stopped him in his step, a question that danced on the top of his mind since Derek arrived. 

He was showering, and Stiles had to yell over the running water. “So I get that you’re a dude, and I’m a dude, and I guess it’s not normal to talk about feelings or whatever, so I’ll stop pressuring you, but can you just tell me, that why out of all the people- Scott everyone, why did you come to me?” 

Stiles jogged in place waiting for the answer, his eyes flickered to the door and he debated if he should just go. He was already in huge trouble no doubt; he could even lose his job, why didn’t he just go-

Then he heard or at least what he thought he heard, it could just be lost in the water, the very faint answer that made Stiles press his ear to the door.

 “…Because, your Stiles.” 

He actually held his breath and pulled away. Before he ran out, he yelled a quick goodbye, and then quieter so that Derek may have not been able to hear over the rush of water. 

“You know, you’re not alone.”

_______________

His conversation with Lydia was very brief. Lydia was meant to be handled in doses.  Her relationship with Jackson had constant ups and downs, by the time Stiles was well over her; she was still having issues with him. She used to come to Stiles’ house crying over their recent break up. Weeks later they would get back together, and though Stiles would warn her about it every time, she would still anyways. 

Right before she left, she would say this one line. When he called her tonight on his way to work, she said the same thing. Well she led into it by saying, “Wow Stiles your life is like some sad gay drama”. Then she repeated what she always told him, every single time she walked out his door and into Jackson’s Porsche. 

“Men always want what they don’t have.”

Stiles wondered if that was true. Or if it only applied to beautiful, perfect, slightly evil gingers, and arrogant, pretty boys. 

____________

He worked harder than he probably ever did before. He served people like lightening, delivered drinks at impressive speeds, fixed slot machines with skill he didn’t know he possessed. He even tolerated the obnoxious flirtation, ass grabs, and other sexual harassments. At the end of his shift Nate whistled, slapped him on the back, and even complimented him. 

It was quite the accomplishment. 

Then, when everyone went home, and the morning shift began, Stiles’ boss called him into his office. 

It was as one would imagine a casino owner’s office to appear. The plush red velvet chair over the shiny wood desk, a computer in the far corner clouded by paper work. There were novelty items in each of the corners as well as in the book shelves. An old stereo took up the entire left wall along with mounds of cds of one hit wonders. 

Sitting behind that desk, in that red velvet chair, with his legs crossed and his chin on his hand was Stiles’ boss. 

“Close the door behind you, and take a seat.” His voice was sickly friendly, that saccharine tone that caused Stiles a full body shiver.

He did so, and as he moved to sit in one of the wooden chairs, the action was interrupted. 

Stiles was completely prepared for the harsh slap across his face. 

The weird thing, he came to realize about injuries, was that they changed over time. The first time you got hit, it hurt like hell. The second time it did too. The third, the fourth, the fifth, the sixth, and so on, all hurt the same. But after a certain number of times, you became aware of things. You learned exactly how a hand rose to deliver a punch, a knee bent to give a kick, and in that knowledge you expected that pain. You remembered how it felt, and were aware of how you would feel in a matter of seconds. 

The pain became less. Maybe it was a sort of numbing device Stiles had unknowingly invented. He knew what was coming, so there was no reason to fear it. Fear intensified everything-fear made it worse. 

Before he could recover, Stiles collar was brutally grabbed and he was yanked forward so his thighs dug into the edge of the desk. 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You take a day off, now you’re coming in late, and your neck looks like it was _mauled_.” 

Stiles wasn’t sure what to say. ‘It’s not what it looks like’ wouldn’t work, because it was very close to what it looked like.  He could say ‘I’m sorry’ but that wouldn’t make him any less angry, sorry doesn’t do anything-

Sorry can’t change the past. 

“I have a friend who’s sick. I’ve been helping him.” Stiles’ breathe was becoming thin with his wind pipe being cut off. Of course, that sentence was the entirely wrong thing to say. 

His expression twisted in angry. Heat stormed up his face, turning it to a pink color from his scruffy chin all the way up to his slicked back dark hair. He threw Stiles’ backwards then, with a force that caused Stiles to fall to the ground and scrap his arms against the sharp edges of the chairs. Enough to draw blood at least, and his head bounced against the carpeted floor. 

He left his desk and was on him. He straddled his waist, and delivered a blow to Stiles’ eye with his ring catching the top of his eyebrow. 

“You fucking slut.” Then he kissed him and sucked Stiles’ bottom lip between his teeth to suck violently on the gum line.  “How fucking dare you cheat on me. Do you know what position you’re in? Do you not know who you fucking belong to?” 

Stiles knew better by know, he knew not to fight, he knew that the best option was to lay there with his eye throbbing and for his excuses to be as clear as possible. “Nothing happened, really, there’s nothing between him and I.” Stiles didn’t want to add the now on. 

“Then why is your neck chewed up like some whore’s? Do you not remember how much you owe me? Do you want to end up on the fucking streets, Stiles’?”

He leaned in close to his ear, “What would daddy say, huh Stiles? He’d have to move out of that house, and you two would be broke off your asses, and whenever you even try to get another job I’d tell them that you’re a filthy fag who harasses their bosses.”

He got up after, and left Stiles one the ground, with his legs apart and his hands in front of his face. He kicked the chair aside to crouch down next to Stiles. In a soft mock gentle tone he whispered, “You can leave now Stiles, you can go back to your friend and lose everything.” 

“Or you could stay here, with me today. It’s your choice.” He stroked Stiles’ cheek narrowly avoiding the swollen eye, “But personally, I’d choose me.”

Stiles sighed, or a noise close, that caused his chest to rise and then fall again heavily. He made no motion of moving, but just turned his head to the side. 

“Good boy.”  



	5. Chapter 5

Stiles didn’t come home till late. Usually he got in around four or five, or just about when the sun was rising over the roofs. Today though, he got in maybe around three, when the sun was high in the sky. He expected Derek to be asleep. They had both sort of adapted to this strange nocturnal schedule, and Stiles doubted that him being gone a few extra hours would change anything,

He was wrong.

When he came in the door, Derek was sitting at the kitchen table. His hands were folded under his chin and he was staring at Stiles. Staring at him with demanding, piercing, eyes that pinned Stiles to the door better than any hand. Well, that wasn’t exactly true; Derek’s hands were big and…forceful, but anyways. 

“Where the fuck have you been?” His voice was a ball of barely controlled anger. There was that growl underneath, and the threat to break the neutral tone it had so far achieved. 

Stiles took cautious steps into the living room, “Nowhere, just had a late day at work, er night, night that went into day.” His excuse did nothing for him, and before he could make a break for the kitchen, Derek was on him. 

Now, his hoodie that he kept in his car for times like this did not completely cover the injury. However it was just enough to create shadows across his face that would shield it from being anything recognizable. He usually stayed a pretty good distance away from people, as close range would reveal pretty much everything. 

Derek stomped over, not moving with his usual grace, he spoke in his fake-patient tone the one that was laced with sarcasm and general snark, “You’ve been gone for almost twenty hours Stiles, I’m pretty sure there’s labor laws against that.” 

“Yeah, well, maybe for werewolves,” he muttered. Stiles wasn’t up for this. He didn’t possess enough energy to fight with Derek. Not today, not when he could only see out of one eye and his entire body throbbed. He kept walking though; the kitchen was only a few feet away.. He could make it there without suffering further Derek Hale interrogation right? Get the swelling down at least right?

Wrong. 

“Hey Stiles!”

Derek stopped him. He grabbed him by the crook of his arm and whirred him around. Stiles was less surprised (because hey, getting manhandled by Derek Hale had definitely became a significant part of his life over the past few years) as in pain. He hissed, because either his entre body ached or Derek’s fingers had magically landed on the spot where the chair hit him the most. 

It was about then when Stiles forgot he was supposed to be hiding his eye. 

He had checked it out in the car and it looked pretty bad, honestly. It was a blueish purple, and to the point where the swelling pushed Stiles’ eye closed. Not only that, but it was pulsing. Derek probably couldn’t notice that, but to Stiles it was the worst thing. He could feel his eye twitching under the weight or the very dull thumping of something like his heart beat around the wound. 

Not only that, but there was also the scab from where the ring had punctured him right under his eyebrow. Faded blood streaked across his face, most of which he had tried to rub off with spit and water from a fountain. 

“I uh fell down some stairs, big stairs, with sharp pointy eye poking edges.”  Of course Derek wouldn’t believe it, Derek wouldn’t believe anything Stiles easily told him. For them, if it was the truth it had to be pulled out with a pair of pliers and at least a dozen curse words. 

“You look like you were mugged or _mauled_ for Christ’s sake.” 

Stiles winced, well he winced as much as possible, and Derek was right there right up in his face. But mostly, he was too tired to fight, too tired to try to have a witty comment against every one of Derek’s attacks. So instead he sighed, a sigh that Derek probably felt in his grip. 

“It’s nothing, really, just a little bruise, humans tend to do that you know.” 

Derek knew. Stiles had used that line in the past, not a lot mind you, because it made him feel weak. It made him feel inferior to Derek, Scott, and actually most of his old friends. But every time Derek backed off. Stiles wasn’t sure if it was just because he realized that he could actually be charged for assault with physical evidence available, or if there was something deeper. Stiles used to think that Derek was a better person; maybe he backed off because he was aware that what he was doing was wrong. 

But maybe not. 

He dropped his hand slowly from Stiles’ arm, and stepped back, maybe only half a foot, but not enough for Stiles to squeeze by without Derek cornering him again. 

“Yeah I get that,” his tone shifted form angry to irritated without missing a beat, “I wanted to know how you _got_ it.”

Stiles didn’t answer, he just sighed for what felt like the billionth time since he got home. When Derek’s persistent glare showed no signs of weakening that deep sigh turned into a whiny groan. “Seriously? Can I just get some ice?” 

Even when Derek allowed him to step by it in no means meant that Stiles was free from this interrogation. 

Derek was right behind him, so close that Stiles could slightly feel his body heat against Stiles’ back. He grabbed the ice pack form the freezer and almost immediately after Stiles wrapped it in a cloth and pressed it to his face, Derek started up again.

“Stiles.” This time he spoke with a condescending tone? That’s what Stiles guessed was the closest word. It was like the voice in television shows that the parents used when they knew their child had done something naughty/life endangering. 

Stiles sagged back onto the dirty grimy kitchen counter He was exhausted. On the days Lucas suggested (demanded) Stiles slept over after one of their fights, there was little sleeping involved. Usually it was just sex, sex and arguing, and Stiles repeating promises-and not something he wanted to discuss. “Derek can’t you just drop it?” 

“No.”  There was it. There was the ‘I’m the Alpha’ ‘I’m superior’ voice. “Just tell me Stiles, it isn’t difficult.” 

Stiles didn’t get angry like normal people. Anger took up a lot of Stiles’ focus and that was one thing he really really needed more of already. He possessed about three different types. The first was brief infuriation, mediocre anger he thought of it as. This mostly happened with Scott where he would be upset, but still able to concentrate on other things, and it would only take a quick apology or bribe for him to get over it. The second one was from which his grudges were born. A significant event had to happen, and that significant event had to make Stiles so furious that what happened was the only thing he could think of. That anger slowly fizzled out though, and he was left with a grudge at the back of his mind like a pile of coals waiting to be relit.

Then, there was a third. They were rare, and Stiles had only experienced maybe a dozen (note: five of them were spawned by Derek) outbursts in his life. Something set him off. Not only was he in a fury though-no he was in something worse. He was blinded by rage, his filter had completely gone, and that haze consumed his brain. That haze that couldn’t tell right from wrong, because it clouded every sense and emotion except for sudden hate.  He would no longer be able to control himself, and the Stiles that was presented to the public every day was gone. 

“What the _fuck_ Derek?! But seriously. What. The. Fuck. First off, you show up to my house a complete wreck, and yeah you had shit happen I get it. Sure, I can’t deny that I was not persistent in asking you to tell me, but hell,  I wanted to hear it from you, because talking actually helps people Derek, really. I could just have asked Scott for all of the details instead of just the basics and let you deal with it on your own but no, I asked _you_ for _your_ own benefits. Not for mine, it had nothing to do with me. But you know what Derek, because you’re an ass, you won’t tell me. I understand the whole emotional nub thing, I read so many fucking articles, but you can’t just run away from things forever. And yeah, our relationship was shit, and I know that you think that when I’m asking you to talk it’s about that-but it’s not. Because we’re done with that, and I don’t know what the hell we are. We’re not together, we’re not friends, I don’t even know if we count as _acquaintances._ But we are two people who have been through a bunch of crappy stuff together and know what crappy stuff is like. So before I tell you about my crappy stuff, you have to tell me, you fucking owe me an explanation. And and you have no right to ask me to talk when you haven’t. Because, because….” 

Stiles was both out of breath and out of words. He searched or a concluding sentences, but ending up panting out with ice water trailing down his face, “because I asked you first. And you know what? That should be fucking enough.” 

Derek had that look of when he did not know what to say. His arms were folded to make defined bicep muscles pop even more, his mouth slightly parted, but a glower taking over. Mostly, it was to hide the fact that the gears reeling n his head were sticking together. The final sign was the intense eye contact, sure most of Derek’s eye contact was pretty intense, but this was just like he was trying to melt you into the ground. 

Stiles licked his cracked, bloody lips, his burst of rage dissipating, and his sense finally starting to come back. “You just can’t…pretend nothing is wrong but then when you look sometimes…it’s like you’ve seen a ghost or something  or something life-threatening, I dunno you’re a werewolf, ghosts probably don’t freak you out.” Derek’s expression did not change, “Do you know what I mean?” 

“Every day.” 

__________________

Stiles didn’t understand at first, because it could of referred to a lot of things. So he didn’t answer right off the bat, instead, he paused and tried to sum up something that would be the most likely connection to what Derek had said before. He clearly did not know what Stiles meant every day or else they would have a hell of a lot easier time communicating. 

“See ghosts…?” Was this going to turn into like a television show? Was there secretly a ghost in his house that only Derek could see because of his supernatural-ness?

But Derek looked uncomfortable; usually he owned whatever space he was in. Whether people realized it or not Derek always made himself very situated in what ever surrounding he happened to be in But now he was looking up at the ceiling or rubbing the back of his neck. The chair he was leaning against started to move under his force, but he didn’t seem to notice. 

The answer came out in an almost reluctant way. It was said like what it was. A secret that Derek did not want to giveaway, with a grumble it came out, “My pack.”

Stiles almost dropped his ice pack. Sure he had read about cases where victims hallucinate and relive their trauma. But Stiles always assumed that Derek’s stress only focused on nightmares. They were dealing with that too-every night they would sleep together, and Derek would calm down slowly. Stiles thought they were getting better. 

This was new. Stiles pushed off the counter and moved forward towards him. Just in case a hand on the shoulder was needed the usual comforting things. Then again Derek flipped from any contact that was not initiated by himself. 

“Where?” Stiles whispered. He now registered why they never talked in the past. It was really freaking awkward. It wasn’t that Stiles didn’t know what to say, of course he did. He just didn’t know what was to get him the fastest answers. 

Derek mumbled a curse, and this time it was in frustration. Stiles wasn’t a telepath, and this still probably wouldn’t be any easier to convey if he was. He guessed that Derek’s thoughts were as jumbled as his words. He started to rub the front, sides, and down to the temples of his forehead; it was a clear sign.  

“Everywhere, everyone.” Stiles didn’t follow. His eyebrows furrowed and his mouth hung open ever so slightly, and his finger rose for a question, but Derek cut him off. “People, Stiles, people-people I don’t know they look like them _everyone_ looks like them.” 

Stiles moved another step closer towards Derek, still didn’t touch him with fear of ruining the moment, but after clearing his throat spoke as gently as possible, “They’re not…here Derek.” 

“No shit Stiles.”  

Then something scary happened. Derek’s breath grew heavier and each one came out a little shuddered. His shoulders didn’t shake but his arms quivered. His muscles twitched through the tight shirt, and he rubbed his forehead again as if smoothing out the invisible wrinkles. “I’m not an Alpha-they _tell_ me I’m not the Alpha.” 

What was he supposed to do? Was he supposed to have a sappy emotional moment with his ex-boyfriend? He couldn’t do that. But he also couldn’t just walk out the door that would just be cruel. So the only solution was to stand there awkwardly, and scratch the back of his head.

When he spoke again it was at a mile every thirty seconds, “I’m not that great at comforting, you think I would be because it kind of fits in to my character profile, you know? But usually people do the opposite of what I say, so I kinda jut quit after awhile. So I mean, why did you come here? I mean you couldn’t have thought that I’d be good at this,” He gestured to between them with his free hand, and chewed on his bottom lip until the scab popped, and blood oozed out. ”And…the people are even more unfamiliar here.”

It was then that Stiles truly saw what a mess Derek was. Stiles had his own crap to deal with, his relationship, living in this neighborhood where walking was a threat-that could be why. It could be because he was still angry and wanted to believe that Derek was incapable of feeling any emotion, incapable of being hurt. Sure, he knew that Derek had problems; he knew that they were severe problems. Stiles had no doubt in his mind that Derek had come here for Stiles to put all of his pieces back together. But even then he assumed it would easy, because this was Derek Hale, he either recovered from his issues immediately or buried them so deep they couldn’t resurface. 

But now, he saw the true image of the man in front of him. His eyes were bloodshot, his normal scruffy chin was starting to grow into a full fledge beard, and he looked thinner. He was definitely thinner, and Stiles had occasionally noticed that haunted look in his eyes-because it was difficult not to, but now he was even more aware of it. After the first couple of days of nightmares, he convinced himself it was mostly gone, but he was wrong.  Right now, it was as present as the day he arrived, that blank, vacant, disturbed stare that locked onto nothing but showed the terror of someone who had seen so much more. 

It not just that though, it was more than his stance or his appearance, it was the essence radiating off of him. It was when the stare disappeared only for a second-just long enough for Derek to send Stiles this expression. His eyebrows raised just a little bit his mouth in a tight frown, and his hand rubbing his face all over. 

Every fiber of Derek’s being was asking Stiles’ to fix him.  What he was doing now was only the start-it wasn’t enough so far, it wasn’t enough to ease the chaos in his conscious. Derek’s mind was in a bullet field without any protection. 

It was too much-too much pressure. How was Stiles supposed to take care of another human being when he could hardly take care of himself. He was afraid of the responsibility.  

“I-I don’t know why you picked me.” 

“I said I wanted normal. You, Stiles, you’re normal.” He didn’t follow, and this next part wasn’t whispered but spoken in a gruff hushed tone, “The scents in Beacon Hills they became…mingled. Everywhere I could only smell the pack, but you, what was left of you there, was so clear.” 

Stiles swallowed some of the extra spit that had suddenly built up into his mouth and this time he chewed on the inside of his cheek, against a little lump that formed there. 

“You were the only one who wasn’t someone else.”

Stiles wasn’t sure what Derek was confessing. It didn’t feel exactly like a compliment or an insult. But something about it had heat rushing to Stiles’ face and even the back of his neck. It was the way it was stated, with unbroken eye contact and Derek’s low serious voice. 

He was at lack of what to say again. He wanted it to be something inspiring something that healed Derek right on the spot, and there would be no more nightmares, no more trauma, he wanted his next words to be perfect. 

“Usually Allison comforts Scott and I just hear about it later. But I’m not her and you aren’t him. We aren’t epically in love, and I can’t say that as long as we’re together everything will be okay.” This wasn’t a good start, but Stiles knew what he was doing, or he had a very vague idea, “We may not even like each other but I can tell you for what it’s worth there is at least one person in the world who wants you alive…and well.” 

Derek didn’t say anything at first, and Stiles began to wonder if his words had no impact. Derek always said it was actions that matter not words, but wasn’t speaking an action in itself? He was hoping Derek thought so too, or else Stiles didn’t know how this could help at all. 

But then his expressionless face morphed into something else. One corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly and his eyes for once had just a hint a life in them. It was there; it was that infectious smile, the one that caused Stiles to return it unknowingly in full force. 

“If that’s you, I’m not sure how much it’s worth.” 

Stiles wasn’t as offended as he usually was by Derek’s comments. He knew everything wasn’t magically better but that one smile was worth it. He yelled with a grin, rather than with the indignation from before, “I’m trying to be helpful and you just have to be a jerk, don’t you?” 

It wasn’t unexpected really, given Derek’s track record. They weren’t far apart; the conversation seemed to pull them closer together with every sentence. Now they were maybe a quarter of a foot away with Stiles head tilted up just a little to meet Derek’s eyes and his body within grabbing range. All he would have to do was reach one arm out.  

He swooped down the only minor height that separated them with his hands still attached to the chair, and not using any other extremities than his mouth to keep Stiles in place. 

When he backed off, Stiles wiped his mouth and whined, “Aw man you had to kill the moment didn’t you?”

“Reward.” He stated simply as he stretched one arm in the air.  

“What?”

There was that trap again. That sneaky thing Derek did, and you knew he had won when he had that silly victorious smirk on his face. “I demand compensation for my efforts.”

Stiles could bring up that he had a boyfriend. A very possessive boyfriend at that. Derek would probably say something lame like he didn’t remember. But Stiles didn’t mention it, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to bring up his lover after Derek kissed him, no, after Derek confessed before. 

They say that flattery does not work on intelligent people. Obviously they had never received a sort of compliment from Derek Hale. 

Stiles wasn’t sure that if someone telling you, you were the only thing keeping them sane was a good thing. But it made Stiles feel pretty fucking special. He felt important, and _needed_.  He could take a survey, and he was pretty sure that people would say there was nothing as meaningful as that. Stiles felt worthless lately; he had been vomited on, beaten, underpaid, and sexually harassed. He felt like his entire existence was just something to laugh at. 

But Derek just told him, that without Stiles he wouldn’t be able to hold onto whatever was left of his sanity.  To someone, Stiles meant something. It freaked him out a lot, but it also made him feel _awesome._

“Fine. One more.”

_

It wasn’t one more, or two more, or three more, it was _a lot_ more. But this kissing wasn’t violent. There was no hunger, no swallowed growls; it was all far simpler. Derek licked the blood off of Stiles lip and moved his hand from the back of the chair to around Stiles’ waist and then to his back. The ice pack slid off between their faces and onto to ground, when Stiles shifted closer. 

Then they were chest to chest. Derek’s tongue worked its way in, licking at the blood soaked corners of Stiles’ mouth before sliding inside. Then not as violently and demanding as before he explored every inch of his mouth. He took his time, for once, and worked his way around in no particular pattern. 

He loosened Stiles’ bow tie with one hand, and Stiles allowed it. In fact he encouraged it, and tugged on the bottom of Derek’s shirt. 

He wasn’t exactly sure how they ended up in the bedroom. He actually thought that it was a sort of combined effort. That they both were exhausted and trying to do this while standing would not have a good outcome. So Stiles believed that they must have slowly shuffled towards the bedroom. 

Stiles bed wasn’t much better than the futon. He was actually briefly concerned if it would be able to hold their combined weight. Stiles could see the marks from Derek’s knees on the stained mattress when he climbed on top of him. 

Clothing was gone in a matter of seconds. Actually initiated by Stiles, who wanted more than anything to trace the outline of Derek’s quite pronounced abdomen muscles. While Derek got frustrated at all the layers that Stiles was wearing and ending up pushing the entire attire upwards which only succeeded in exposing the middle part of his ribs and the low waistband of his boxer shorts. 

He complained about Stiles being too skinny, softly to himself mostly, but then kissed every dip between ribs and then moved up to kiss his cheek, and the extra water that was left from the ice. 

“You’re being so nice.” Stiles managed to say still grinning, “It was kind of unexpected.” 

Derek stopped, and propped himself up on his elbows, he quirked an eyebrow up, “You’d rather have me be mean?” 

“I don’t know, no. But I kind of have a thing for wall shoving now, thanks to you.” 

Derek moved to chew on the flesh of Stiles neck, “Shut up.” 

That was innocent for them, and things very quickly turned not so innocent. This was probably the longest, nicest, foreplay that they ever had. Usually their sexual-ish encounters were very rough, fast, and occurred multiple times, because of their rough and quickness.

So it wasn’t a surprise when Derek started to get more aggressive. Derek’s slid his fingers inside of Stiles pants, and skillfully found the slight bulge in his boxers. 

“Uh…Derek?”

That hand quickly changed tactics and went from naïve touches to more practiced techniques. He began to roll his palm over the clothed erection, changing his pressure every time, and successfully drawing out a chocked moan from Stiles. 

“Oh shit.” Stiles muttered. 

“For someone who has a lover, you’re pretty damn horny,” Derek mocked. And Stiles did argue back because he was right. He needed physical contact and he needed it right fucking now.  Stiles entire forearm was over his mouth trying to prevent himself from actually saying those words, and the other slung over his shoulder, digging his fingers nails into Derek’s tattoo. 

That hand lifted out and moved down inside of his boxers. Stiles’ _shook_ with pleasure the instant Derek’s hands were around him. He forgot how they felt, how strong they were, how he could feel every callous against his cock, and how Derek knew where to touch-how to touch. 

“Shitshitshit,” and Stiles bucked his hips into the air, but Derek was there rubbing the inside of his thighs with his fingertips and going over  his balls ever so lightly. “We can’t do it, you know, we really shouldn’t do it. I’m with someone, and seriously we shouldn’t be doing this, and we definitely can’t do _it_.”

Derek mouth wasn’t near his ear, but his voice with that growl on each of the vowels, “What are you twelve? We aren’t going to fuck.” 

He reached for Stiles’ hand and guided it past his stomach, and into his own boxers. Even though he was doing this, he said, “If you really want to stop, we’ll stop.”

But Derek knew, the smug bastard, when he touched  and talked like that Stiles was no way going to say no. 

It was a bad idea. This was how their fucked up relationship in the past had started right? This was how everything went down hill in the first place, right? This was too fast, too much, more than Stiles wanted, right? Did he want this? 

Stiles didn’t stay anything. Instead he groped for Derek’s own erection. When he found it, he could hear Derek snicker above him about how harder Stiles got from it. And it wasn’t from just some hand job-it was from the memories. 

Stiles could trace Derek’s dick with his hand, run his hand along it, remembering how long, how wide, how it felt. How he could make Derek feel, and that was the best part. He could make Derek groan quietly above him, and every time he did that, Derek would make sure that Stiles would reply with a louder one. 

It was a loop really, both of them trying to out do each other, until they were both going at their usual fast pace, and faster and faster, until both orgasms arrived almost simultaneously.  They wiped sticky wet fingers on the sheets, and didn’t need to analyze anything more. 

It was certainly the best hand job Stiles had ever got.

  Derek Hale wasn’t fixed; he wasn’t back to as sane as he would ever be. It just couldn’t magically happen like that. But some part of Stiles felt like from before, what Derek had told him, was a start. 

__________

It certainly slipped his mind then, and maybe it was because of the other activities they were preoccupied by. Stiles didn’t notice that Derek never brought up the subject of his wounds again, and he never demanded that Stiles tell him after. 

He didn’t figure out that before, Derek was asking out of courtesy. He decided it would be better to hear it from Stiles. 

Derek was completely capable of finding out on his own.  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Stiles didn’t think he would ever get used to waking up next to Derek Hale. There was never really a way to adapt to someone clutching you for dear life, gasping, and digging his claws into your back. However, either Stiles was actually slowly adjusting or Derek was getting less extreme.

They were both on Derek’s futon, and it became a routine now to just fall asleep with him out of efficiency sake. Lately it only took him a few minutes to coax Derek back into breathing normally, and get his claws to retract.

What he did next however, was something entirely new.

Derek’s voice was rough, and still raspy from the air he was trying to catch. His eyes were a little wild, and he had not yet come back to this world.

 “Before, it more than that.”

Stiles kept his tone soft and gentle, but just loud enough to be heard over the car horns from outside, “What?”

Derek’s arms wrapped around him tight, and his claws had not become shorter, but instead lengthened to the point of poking tiny holes into the fabric of Stiles’ tank top. He spoke into his neck, “When you’re there, they’re gone. All of them. You’re normal. I want normal.” His chest shuddered then, and Stiles could feel it against his own body, “Fuck I want normal.”

He was in that daze, that post nightmare way that he got. His emotion that normally wasn’t there suddenly appeared. Stiles read about this, he knew it was coming every time. But this sudden confession was something he wasn’t prepared for.

It brought a goofy smile to his face, “I seriously think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

Derek’s claws retracted from his back, and Stiles thought he was going to take a swipe at his throat, but instead he pulled away entirely. His features shifted back at his irritated huff, “It’s a statement, not a compliment idiot.”

They both rolled away from each other as far as possible, which was not very far at all. Derek turned on his side and Stiles could not tell if he was going to go back to sleep or not.

It was about time for him to get ready for work, and usually Derek got up about the same time. There was something on his mind though, something that he couldn’t shake away.

He jabbed Derek in the side with his finger, and said louder than before, “You know I don’t know if I said anything yesterday, but it’s not uh your fault. You haven’t been really specific on the dets, but from what I know, it wasn’t your fault. You can’t control everything.”

Stiles didn’t really know anything about what happened. He just knew the little bit about what Scott told him (and Scott was always quite vague on details, on every thing really), but Derek had not spoken of the actual incident.

Stiles knew the one thing that helped him the most when his mom died, was his dad hugging him and telling him while he cried, that it wasn’t his fault.

“I was the Alpha, it was my fault.”

Stiles didn’t know how to argue with that, “Well being the Alpha sounds pretty shitty, in my opinion. You should just quit.”

Derek turned to him, and stared as if he was absolutely insane. His eyes narrowed, and he whacked Stiles on the side of the head.

“What was that for?!” He yelped, “I thought I was helping!”

Derek gave him the famous Hale glare, “You know that being the Alpha is everything.”

Stiles did. He knew it because he had been involved with werewolves since he was sixteen. He knew that werewolves boiled down to a basic structure. Being an Alpha was like living in a penthouse.

To say that it always had affected their relationship was an understatement.

“Yeah, but you’re not just a werewolf, you’re also a human.”

The anger radiating off of Derek subsided. When it went quiet, Stiles thought he might be considering what he said, but after a minute he snorted. “What good is that?”

“Hey I live as a human every day! It can be awesome!”

“I doubt that.” He instantly shot down.

Stiles got out of bed; it was time for him to start getting ready. He really didn’t need to be late to work again. “Whatever, think what you want, but being a human is a hell a lot easier than being an Alpha.”

Derek followed his action and rose out of bed with a full body stretch. Stiles wanted to mutter ‘show off’ under his breath but held off. Derek rubbed his neck lazily, and headed towards the bathroom. On his way there he called out nonchalantly, almost playfully, as a sign that this would never actually happen, “It’d be disgraceful.”

The seriousness in the conversation was gone. But Stiles wouldn’t give up so easily, he hounded after Derek, “Well fuck other people. You always looked like you never cared what they thought.”

“I don’t.” He turned to Stiles in the bathroom doorway, and looked down at him condescendingly, with the superiority to back up his answer.

“Then why start?”

Derek didn’t reply.

_____________________

It wasn’t until he got out of the shower that Stiles noticed something different. There was a small glass with saran wrap over it on the counter top next to the sink. It was a cloudy color, and Stiles approached with caution. Messily scribbled in Derek’s third-grader handwriting over the piece of masking tape wrapped around the sides were the words ‘For eye’.

He could’ve just said nothing and accepted the obvious gift of strange potion looking thing. But this was Stiles.

He called out to the living room, “Hey Derek what’s this weird liquid-y thing, and will it kill me?”

Derek yelled back, “It’s for your eye. Dumb ass”  

He held back his laugh and grin, “I got that much, but will the side effects kill me?”

Stiles was not expecting Derek to appear right at the entrance to the bathroom.

He clutched at the towel wrapped around his waist that was steadily falling off slim hips. “Hey, not dressed here, back up.”

Derek apparently lost the ability to hear things properly, “It’s aspirin in water.”

That wasn’t when things got weird. Things got weird when Derek stood there with no intention of moving. Under that pressure how was Stiles’ hand not supposed to slip and end up landing on his actual eye.

“Ow, _ow_ holy fuck _ow._ ”

He heard Derek sigh, “You’re not supposed to put it in your actual eye.” There was another ‘dumbass’ attached to the end of the sentence even if it was not spoken.

After flushing his burning eye out, things got really weird. Weird in the sense of Stiles sitting on top of the toilet lid, in a towel, with Derek Hale spreading a self -concocted remedy onto his eye.

He clearly wasn’t trying to be gentle or anything because the way he was pressing down on the swollen areas was not at all gentle. Now that certain...actions weren’t distracting them, Derek could clearly see the bruises along Stiles hips, elbows, and wrists.

Maybe that’s what made him say, “I want to see your work.” He wasn’t asking. It was a blatant statement. He planned to come to work with Stiles today, in a voice that did not leave any room for arguing, and stern undertones.

Of course, Stiles was going to wedge in whatever bickering space was left. That and his nervous laughter, “Um, well, it’s kind of lame actually, I mean I’m kind of between jobs right now,” lie, “it may not be totally permanent either, so yeah…”

Derek finished up, but his grip on Stiles’ shoulder to keep him from moving before did not let up. “They’re looking for a new sheriff.”

Stiles mouth went dry, and he rolled his shoulder back to try to push Derek’s hand off. “Is it really that bad…?”

He moved away and leaned against the wall across from Stiles. He shrugged, “The bullet hit pretty deep. He can’t move as fast, Stiles. He’s getting old.”

Stiles groaned and rubbed the non-injured side of his face in his finger tips, “He loves his job. Don’t tell he’s going to get fired-not again. Physical therapy should be helping, right?”

“Slowly.”

Stiles could feel heat pouring to his face. Memories of that night started to fill his head.  If only he would never have lied to his dad, if he wouldn’t have followed him out there, if things were different.

He didn’t want to do this here. He didn’t want to do this at all- not while he was in a towel, in his bathroom, and his still throbbing eye was starting to turn numb.

What Derek said next didn’t help, “It’s not your fault.”

Stiles felt like a little kid again. He felt like crumpling into a pile and wanting someone to pat his head and tell him it would all be okay. More than anything he wished it wasn’t Derek standing in front of him. He wished it was someone he could break down in front of; someone that would clap him on the shoulder and tell him it would be fine, that everything would be fine.

“Of course it’s my fault. He was protecting _me_ Derek. It’s not even the hunter’s fault, it was completely mine, I shouldn’t have acted as bait-I shouldn’t have signed up to pretend to be a werewolf,” He started speaking quicker and quicker, “It was my fault. I dragged him into this whole business.”

Derek could have said anything, and it wouldn’t have changed how Stiles felt. It wouldn’t have made his mind less of a mess, because Derek didn’t know how to form comforting words.

So instead he threw Stiles own back at him. “You can’t control everything.”

He moved to walk out of the bathroom, and Stiles raised his head up from the bent position.

It was the first time for week he felt even slightly better.

He felt so much better that as Derek was leaving; he turned him around and kissed him. Later Stiles would be in shock, that he was the one who initiated it in the first place.

With one hand he grabbed the back of Derek’s head and the other held his towels up. This time Derek wasn’t the one who was kissing desperately, trying to grab onto anything that he could.

It was Stiles. Stiles was the one who was trying to get a hold of anything. He was the one who was trying to smash their mouth together in constant contact, and Derek was the one obliging.

He put his hand on the back of Stiles’ neck, and moved down to the middle of his back.  Stiles didn’t even notice, he needed comfort; he needed Derek’s mouth on his, their breath together, he needed to feel _this_.

So when Derek lifted Stiles onto the counter top, Stiles was aware of one thing about this moment, about what they were doing right now. About Derek shifting from just going along with Stiles’ kisses to returning them in full force, to moving down his jaw, and his hand moving Stiles’ away from the towel and pining it to the counter.

About said towel falling off Stiles’ hips, and Derek giving it encouraging tugs every now and then. About Derek starting to grind erratically against him, and Stiles trying to scoot off the edge to better return the action, until he was practically riding his firm thigh.

Stiles began to try to force Derek’s jeans off of him, by digging his heels into the fabric and moving them down, until Derek got the hint and shed them and his boxers so they pooled around his ankles.

He was aware of about two things, when Derek grunted in his ear ‘where?’. When Stiles, answered and Derek carried him with one hand on his back and the other on the body of his thighs squeezing and groping whatever he could grab while moving.

Derek dropped Stiles onto the bed, and fumbled through the cabinet. As he spread the lube onto his fingers, he looked at Stiles with eyebrows raised, and the question he posed didn’t need words.

It was up to Stiles, what they were doing right now was pretty immature-not the direction that Stiles wanted this new relationship to go. He should say no, he should stop this right now. But all he could imagine was Derek saying that he was the only one helping him, that someone needed Stiles and it had nothing to do with credit, or debt, or anything created from that incident.

Most importantly that Derek believed that it wasn’t his fault.

Maybe there was something wrong with Stiles. Maybe he had been corrupted over the years that in his relationship with Derek, sex was always the follow up before or after emotion, how they avoided finishing discussions.

Maybe it was pretty fucked up that Stiles now believed that the best way to show gratitude was to have sex. But whatever people thought, judged, they shouldn’t because it was always how they worked. He didn’t give a damn.

He nodded an okay.

When Derek pushed a finger inside of him and rubbed against that spot that Derek must have memorized. Stiles encouraged him by rocking back, and even more when Derek added another.

He anticipated what was coming, he already was thinking about it, even before the third finger entered, and before they were removed and the condom was torn open. He knew what was going to happen, and that made him more excited. It was then that he was completely aware of those two things.

One that he missed this, he missed how Derek’s body connected with his, how much bigger than him he was and how he knew where to touch, and how to just perfectly.

The other was how much he didn’t give a fuck about everything else at this moment. Sure, later, he’d be regretting it, he’d be upset because this meant they were reverting back to their old relationship and neither of them could help it. How Stiles had broken the promise to himself that he wouldn’t do this.

But right now he didn’t give a fuck.

Because Derek believed it wasn’t his fault.  
  



	7. Chapter 7

He didn’t take Derek to work.  So what would occur next was a whole lot of a surprise. Now, on the other hand Stiles was not shocked that people noticed something had happened.  He was completely unable to focus on work. His rounds around the casino were constantly stopped, not by customers but by memories of a few hours before.  

_“Stiles.” Derek grunted out and his breath was hot against Stiles’ shoulder. Stiles’ knees dug into the bed, and when his arms shook, Derek wrapped his arm around Stiles’ stomach and his pace became rougher, less controlled._

_Stiles was a mess, he couldn’t even form coherent thoughts. His mouth was wide open, and his eyes crossed when Derek hit that one spot, and locked onto it, his thrusts now concentrated there every time._

_Stiles lunged forward with every motion and tried to reach for the invisible headboard. He gave up, and with a strangled moan, fell to his elbows and was completely lost to do anything but rock back against Derek._

_“Oh God, oh Derek, oh Derek.”_

He didn’t realize that he was humping the slot machine, until it’s user coughed rather loudly, and then Nate slapped him on the back.

“Hey mate, good to see you on time.”

Stiles straightened himself, and replied to Nate with a shaky smile, “Yeah just been losing track of time, ya know. How it goes…clock is broken and all.”

Nate didn’t buy anything. He was one cunning shit-head. He coyly brought up again with his whispered tone, “Really? Has nothing to do with your house guest?” He was grinning from ear to ear now, trailing after Stiles as he turned away from him to serve.

Stiles baited after customers and didn’t even look at Nate when he spoke, “He’s just a friend staying at my house. It’s nothing more than that.”

Nate’s reply was just plain dirty. He looked Stiles up and down, and then came up behind him and spoke loud enough to make Stiles cringe, but no one else to notice, “Is that why you’re limping?”

Stiles elbowed him in the gut, but it was too late the flush already spread up to the back of his ears where Nate could just see. He tried to shield it by casually scratching the back of his head, “It’s nothing man, stop it. It’s just friends visiting, doing visit-y friendly things, not more than friendly things.”

Nate put him into a headlock with a swift motion, and Stiles almost dropped his platter of drinks. He ruffled Stiles’ hair, mostly affectionately, but completely annoying.

“You dog! You totally just got fucked! Before work too! Geez Stiles, you little sex-“

Stiles really didn’t know how the universe hated him this much that this could even possibly happen. But just as Nate had discovered this little fact, their boss flagged both of them down.

He wasn’t upset at the proximity between Stiles and Nate, because it was a daily occurrence. Nate meant no harm, and as Lucas once told Stiles very carefully (in less cryptic words than he had actually used), that if those touches ever got anymore than bromance-y, that he would rip Nate’s skinny arms off.

Or at least that’s what Stiles got from that conversation.

“Stiles good to see you on time.” It was times like this when he realized why so many people loved Lucas, his boss. Why Stiles was originally attracted to him. He held this sense of power about him, confidence that had yet to turn into arrogance. Plus he was really friggin handsome, chiseled jaw and pretty decent suits.

 Stiles always wondered if anyone else noticed that he smiled as if he had a secret. That made Stiles wonder if _he_ was the secret.

“Yes, sir. Left the house early this time, you know because my jeeps been having issues, and all.” Stiles at least attempted to sound professional.

Nate’s however was the opposite, “Yeah, of course, got some action before he left though.” He slapped him on the back, again.

The look Lucas sent him was pure fury. His nostrils flared, his pupils dilated, and Stiles could’ve sworn there was steam leaking out of his ears. He could spot his fist clench, and then in a matter of seconds loosen.

His cool was back, Nate had not even noticed. He suavely slid by them and finished the conversation, “Well, congratulations, but in the future please keep your private lives to yourselves, both of you.”

The sentence was a surprise, and Stiles thought that maybe this time it wasn’t just a façade, maybe he actually wasn’t that upset.

Then he turned around, with hands on the either side of his suit, and kept his stern authority tone, “Oh, Stiles, come to my office after you finish your round.”

Once he passed, Nate’s voice turned into a hush mumble, “What do you think that was about?”

Stiles shrugged and lied through his teeth, his eyes never left his boss’ retreating back. “No idea, man, no idea.”

______________________

That was not the surprise. It would be a surprise however for Lucas not to react to such a comment. So he was even less than surprised when he was met with anger and a blow to the jaw at the moment he appeared in the office.

“You little lying slut.”

Stiles was too tired, and a part of him did feel guilty, because yes he had cheated. He had cheated now more than once with Derek, and each time he had _really_ liked it.

The blow to the jaw was expected, and so was him pushing Stiles over. The chair he was sitting in toppled backwards and Stiles fell out of it in the same motion. This was a fiercer fight than the other day, and this time, he was aiming for places that weren’t so easily spotted.

It wasn’t about sex right now, he hadn’t kissed him even once, hadn’t touched him with any sense of arousal. This right now was pure anger, and Stiles hadn’t seen him like this in awhile.

Not to this point at least, the point where Stiles began to use that same calming voice he used for Derek. “There’s nothing between us, seriously, nothing, we didn’t do anything. It’s nothing.” He repeated over and over but a kick to the lower part of his ribs caused his voice to leave him in a whimper.

The surprise came right when Lucas picked Stiles’ up by the collar, and used the knife in his pocket to cut a thin slit of skin right under his bone.

Right then, was when Derek Hale burst into the room.

Derek had been a werewolf for all of his life, and out of all the people Stiles knew, he had the best control. He could keep his cool in the most pressuring situations, and even during the full moon.

He was completely wolfed out when he saw Lucas standing over Stiles.

His eyes were bright red, and before he could get a word out, Derek ripped Lucas off of Stiles and with elongated claws around his throat threw him against the table. It didn’t break, but the legs wobbled underneath.

Stiles sat up at attention but before he could interrupt, Derek was already wailing away on the man. He had no doubt that Lucas had gone unconscious from the first punch-maybe even before that just from shock.

But Derek didn’t stop, he was completely gone, he dug his claws into the man’s cheek, and when blood first oozed out, Stiles grabbed the back of Derek’s shirt and tried to drag him away.

“Stop, stop Derek, oh my God, seriously you’re going to kill him.”

Derek backed away.

“What are you even doing here?!”

He growled then, his features still in wolf form, but the beginnings of human started to show through. He didn’t look the least bit less pissed off. “I followed you. I could _smell_ him on you.”

Stiles would put aside how completely creepy that was, because he had to make a decision right then. Who knows when Lucas was going to wake up, and Derek’s features were starting to shift back to normal. If he woke up and saw him normal-well he’d be able to give the cops an accurate description.

He was one of the most powerful men in Vegas, surely he would be able to find someone to connect his description to Derek Hale, and it wouldn’t help that he had once been blamed for a murder case either. Derek would be locked up in a matter of seconds.

“We need to get out, like immediately, pronto.”

Derek for once, agreed.

_

The car ride was in silence. No radio, no talking, just Stiles’ internally freaking out, and then as soon as they were in park, externally.

“Oh shit, oh shit, what am I going to do? What if he recognizes you? What if he puts together what happened? Oh shit.”  He muttered and fumbled with the keys to the door, he dropped them twice before getting in. Derek watched him without saying anything, and when Stiles opened up to a dark apartment, Derek pushed him through the door and kissed him.

Stiles responded with a slap. Or well, he thought he hit the door instead, since it was pitch black in his apartment. They usually had daylight for their source of lighting, but since it was who-knows-when time of night, they had to actually use the overhead lamps.

Stiles wasn’t even sure where the light switches were.

“Oh no, no _way_ are you doing that. I don’t put my foot down often, because you’re well large and intimidating, but there is no fucking way you get to kiss me. You _punched_ my boss, Derek!” He put some space between him, and he didn’t know if Derek’s werewolf vision would allow him to see the incredulous expression on Stiles’ face-but he hoped he could. He was absolutely furious, what was he going to do now? Derek didn’t even know anything about the situation, and then he was just trying to kiss him?!

“You think that makes you some sort of _hero_?”

Stiles wasn’t a werewolf. He couldn’t see Derek’s expression, but he was almost positive he was making the one he always made when he didn’t get his way. Gritted teeth behind pursed lips, eyebrows arched down, nose wrinkled slightly- the face that was hard to forget.

“You’re the one who should be explaining things, Stiles. I helped you, because it looked like you were getting the shit beat out of you.” His tone wasn’t controlled. It was all over the place, emotions Stiles couldn’t tell. There was one definite thing though; the anger came through clearly, in that growl undertone.

“We’re not talking about this, we’re talking about how you came out of nowhere and beat my boss unconscious!”

He started to grope the wall for a light switch, but Derek grabbed his wrist in mid-search.  He held it so tightly Stiles wondered if even for a fraction more, his bones would crush.

“No, Stiles we’re talking about this. We’re talking about this _now_.” He didn’t let go, even when Stiles’ gave out a groan in pain, “Tell me now, or I’ll kill him.” When he released it, Stiles could feel the warmth still there, the pain still lingering.

“You can’t be serious. You wouldn’t do that, you’re not a killer, c’mon Derek stop messing arou-“

He could see Derek’s eyes glow red in the dark. “I swear to God, I’ll go back there and fucking kill him.”

Stiles shivered and rubbed where the knife had made the small incision into his skin. There was blood sticky on his collarbone. This was something he had promised to keep from the world-Stiles’ dirty little secret. Scott didn’t know, Allison didn’t know, Lydia didn’t know, and his father for sure didn’t know.

Stiles’ breath came out scratchy, and strained as he said, “I owe him money.” There was no dramatic pause, no gasp from Derek or any interruption, and that made it worse.

“When my dad got hurt by the hunters, it was right before my last year in college at Arizona, and no one would hire a kid like me-majoring in Applied Science, and didn’t even have a degree yet”

His voice started to get more steady, “And I decided to quit school because student loans were going to be too much and we couldn’t pay for medical bills, and when one of my college buddies heard that I was quitting because of money-that’s where Lucas came in.”

He could replay the scene in his mind. He was so young back then, and it was an opportunity of a lifetime, he thought he would be like Annie or something. Like a miracle had become along. Yes, as dumb as it always was, Stiles still believed in miracles, and that’s maybe how Lucas gained his power.

 “He loaned me the money, and gave me a job. At first he was great…and then he wanted to you know, do things, and I agreed and it was fine but then but then it got bad. I don’t know where or when but things just started to go _wrong_.”

Derek hadn’t spoken through any of this. Stiles could now only barely make out his frame in the darkness, against the door, and completely still. “He beat you?”

There was judgment in his tone, along with disbelief.

Hearing the words out of someone’s mouth made it all the more real. It made him feel like less of a man for not leaving, for still being here. But it was more involved than that! It was harder to explain than just going or staying. 

“He’d say things like if I ever tried to get a job any where else, he’d make sure I couldn’t. He practically owns Vegas, and I can’t runaway without paying him back-that’s wrong. That’s just not okay. That’s stea-“

Derek cut him off before he could finish, “You knew I had the money why didn’t you come to me?”

It was true, Derek did have the money. It was a secret he had revealed to Stiles the first time he mentioned what an awesome car he had. Derek was completely loaded; he just preferred not to spend it. Why? Stiles would never know, but apparently transportation in Derek’s eyes should always be more luxurious than actual living.

Stiles wrinkled his nose, “Oh yeah, ‘hi, sorry our meaningless sex didn’t work out, but I need half a million dollars. That would be really awesome’. There is no way you would’ve given it to me.”

“If I knew this,” Derek threw his arm into the air to gesture to general surroundings “was the alternative, than I would have.”

Stiles could hear blood pounding in his ears. He was entering that haze, and what Derek was saying versus what he was implying started to become two totally different things to Stiles. His voice was hoarse and quiet when he spoke next trying to be as calm as possible, “And then what? What would happen? Would we go back to before? It would’ve been so fucked up.”

Derek on the other hand was not calm, and he had no intention of keeping the conversation so. He wasn’t growling or snarling, he was just plain shouting. Stiles had only seen Derek act this way once or twice, and it was usually in regards to his pack.

 “It would be better than the shit you have going no here! You’re better than this Stiles!”  It felt like every word in that last sentence was enunciated. It rang through Stiles’ head.

The next phrases that came out of his mouth were not anything he intended to say. Hell, he didn’t even know if he heard them himself. It was getting to that point in a fight, where the original fight evolves something else, and unspoken history gets dragged up from the surface.

“I couldn’t have asked you Derek, I mean seriously, why would you even say that? We both know what would’ve happened.”

Derek Hale never ceased to surprise Stiles. Maybe it was because he always pictured Derek as this emotionless, hollow, brute; so when he did say something human-ish it was completely unexpected.

But this right now was so impactful to Stiles, because it was so different from how he always thought Derek felt. He always thought they shared one belief in common and Derek was about to rip it to shreds.

“You always assume we can’t be around each other without it being fucked up.”

Stiles always thought- _always_ thought that Derek felt the same way. That’s the reason they avoided each other for so long was because it would be totally screwed up if they were ever near each other.

Hadn’t Derek always felt the same?

“Don’t you?”

Stiles found the lights and flipped on the first two switches as he quickly changed the subject. “Let’s forget about this-it’s been a long night, I should probably check on Lucas.”

Derek smacked Stiles’ hand away and turned them back off. He kept the other one securely on his elbow to keep him from going anywhere. “No I don’t.”

Stiles dipped his head down and bit the inside of his cheek. He knew Derek’s eyes were probably still adjusting to the change too right? Or did werewolf senses work that fast? He didn’t want to be having this conversation in the first place.

For some reason though, he was glad he couldn’t see his face.

“Why? I mean dude, how can you say that, we were having pointless sex, and then you told me to leave for no explanation really, in the Stiles’ book that goes under pretty fucked up.”

Derek answered immediately, hardly before Stiles could take a breath, he had been anticipating this. “I wasn’t talking about then.”

That was another thing Stiles hated about Derek, he could map out conversations and direct them in the way he wanted.

“When were you talking about?”

“Now.”

Stiles refused to play into it. He refused to fall back into Derek’s traps and easy words, no matter how short syllabled or angry they were-he refused. This was too different. It was changing how Stiles thought the entire dynamic of their relationship function. He couldn’t process it.

“This isn’t a thing. We just did things, but if anything it was more like before than something…else.” He trailed off, because the words going through his head had become just broken sentences of questions.

Derek tone was snotty and over confident when he replied, “Well I clearly don’t remember sitting through the entire star movies before.”

Stiles’ mouth felt dry and when he licked his lips he realized it had been gaped open in shock, surprise, rage, something. “Star wars.” He corrected, “And that was a friendly thing. Things friends do, and you know my house, my rules.”

“I wanted to rip your T.V. out. If there was any more I was going to,” Then before Stiles could interrupt, “We aren’t fucking things up.”

Derek, when he wanted to be, was so very persistent, that was another mistake he made when he picked Stiles to argue with. Especially the Stiles now, the Stiles who wasn’t afraid, who had been threatened enough, who had seen wolves fight.

The Stiles who wouldn’t back down.

He flailed his arms in the dark, and tried to get the manner across, “Are you kidding me? We’re both in so much shit that anything we do is completely messed up and doing each other is not going to help!” He wrenched his elbow out of Derek’s grip.

“I can give you the money, Stiles.” He didn’t respond to what Stiles said-because Derek knew they were both screwed up too, and maybe he just didn’t want to admit it.

“Yeah, and,” he couldn’t believe what was about to come out of his mouth, “what if you told me to leave again? I wouldn’t have anywhere to go, and it’d be worse.”

Derek’s hand was now on his shoulder, still firm, expecting him to run. “That was different, that was before.”

Stiles tried to squirm away, pushing at Derek’s chest with his palm and slipping against the ground in an attempt to move, “Well, the past comes back and kicks you in the ass, and it is, right now.”

Derek stopped him completely. He put both hands on his shoulders now and was shaking his entire body as if trying to get the message across through there, “Stiles. You’re hearing me but you’re not fucking listening. I said it isn’t the same.”

Then when he stopped struggling, and Derek stopped shaking. Stiles answered with the question that had been plaguing his mind since the day he left Beacon Hills. The question that came up whenever he thought of Derek or werewolves, or anything remotely close.

“If, if it isn’t the same, then tell me why you told me it wasn’t working.” His throat felt raw, exhausted from fighting, “why you told me to leave.”

Derek slowly slid his hands off of Stiles’ shoulder by trailing down his arms, and muttered, “You were a kid. You were barely _legal_ Stiles. I shouldn’t have in the first place.”

Stiles knew he was probably misunderstanding, but that didn’t stop him from replying as offended as possible. “So you dumped me because I was…jail bait?”

Derek sounded just as exasperated as Stiles felt, “That’s not it! God. Why do you fucking assume…” He sighed again, and this thought, this feeling, was something Stiles’ had been trying to get at from Derek for the longest time. “When I was a kid, I got caught up in all this shit, Kate, my family, I didn’t want that for anyone else, for you.”

It was quiet. Stiles didn’t know what to say.  His brain was trying to place what Derek said into the pieces of the past that he had always been wondering about.

From that, a new question came, “Why didn’t you find me when I was older then, before now?”

This was what Derek had been dreading-Stiles could tell. He could tell from the way Derek groaned, and how he hit the back of his head against the door, “Years change people, I thought they’d change you-too much.”

Stiles could hear his heart beat in his ears. His stomach was in knots, clenched in fear, that feelings overwhelmed, the anxiousness that caused the color to drain from his cheeks.

“Did they?”

After a pause, a scary, too long pause, “…Yeah.”

Then Stiles was furious, and afraid, and hurt-and too any emotions were coursing through his being. The only word that he could even utter while his head tried to catch up with what was happened was, “Leave.”

Derek didn’t approve.  He was on Stiles; he grabbed his jaw and twisted it towards his mouth. He kissed Stiles frantically, all lips smashed together, and teeth gritted. Stiles couldn’t see anything, so he patted his way down Derek’s face, neck, until he felt the soft material of his T-shirt.

Both of their breathing was ragged, and when Stiles felt Derek reach for him again, he spoke, “Am I the right person you were looking for? Like, right here, right now, am I the person?”

There was another excruciatingly long pause before he answered, softer than before, but still clear, “No.”

“Get out.”

He knew Derek was going to open his mouth to argue again, he knew Derek was going to try to prove whatever mysterious God knows what point he had-and Stiles didn’t want to hear it.

It wasn’t any good. Stiles didn’t want to know how he wasn’t the right person, he didn’t want to know how much he’d change, and he didn’t want to know that he was so different from that kid who spent all his time doing research on werewolves.

The thought made him sick to his stomach.

“Seriously, get out, get out before I call the cops or something. I don’t know. Just _leave_.”

Derek did. He slammed the door behind him, and left Stiles standing alone in the entryway in complete darkness.  It was awhile before he actually turned on the lights, before he realized what had just happened, and could cope with seeing an empty space.

That was the last time Derek Hale ever stepped foot in Stiles’ apartment.  



	8. Chapter 8

**One Month Later**

“Derek, how can you not like this movie? I mean I understand the new one was not as awesome, but still _still_. Do you know how badass it would be to be a Jedi?” Stiles’ eyes never left the screen. Any popcorn that he tried to place in his mouth got stuck between the couch cushions instead. The sounds of lightsabers against each other rattled the small apartment.

Derek was not a movie talker. Stiles always wondered if this was because he was actually watching the film, or was so against it that giving the silent treatment seemed the only suitable reaction.

Usually, Stiles got a grunt out of him and occasionally a shut up. Sometimes he would receive a comment, but never complimentary.

 “Derek, seriously, I know you have claws and all, but a lightsaber. A lightsaber would be sick. You can’t deny that.” He tore his eyes away from the screen to catch a glimpse, to see if Derek was impressed as he was.

Over the span of his stay, Stiles had gotten used to leaving room for Derek. At first their limbs constantly collided in an incredibly uncomfortable way, and there was a battle of who had to experience the sharp edges of the armchair.

But eventually they worked out a position where if Stiles crossed one leg under the other, there was just enough space left for Derek. It became natural-as the weeks went on they hadn’t even thought, and just naturally assumed it.

Stiles automatically left the space open, and it wasn’t until now that he realized it was empty.

_“C’mon Derek! You have all night to watch whatever you want, but these are like some of the best movies ever, and you get to watch ‘em with me, which make them even better. Or at least I personally think so, and I’m sure you know, the general public would agree.”_

_Derek rolled over in his futon, groaned, and threw the pillow at Stiles face with more force than necessary. Stiles placed it next to him on the couch and continued to badger Derek no matter what injuries it may cause him._

_“Seriously, you can erase from your mind with whatever you do all night-what do you all night?”_

_Derek yawned, and begrudgingly got up. He made sure to send Stiles glares with every move of his muscles._

_“Nothing, make sure no one breaks in.”_

_Stiles couldn’t help it; he couldn’t keep the joke in, he going to burst, “So you stay up all night like a…guard dog?”_

_Derek looked like he was going to kill him; he kicked the futon aside (so Stiles could move past it to dig the DVD player out of the drawer it blocked) with extra force, and his face twitching._

_Stiles started laughing, “Wolf! I meant wolf! Geez calm down!”_

Derek still watched it with him.

They ended up falling asleep during Return of the Jedi and decided that this was going to be a multiple day event. They watched all of them, together, and Derek stopped complaining until Stiles bitched the entire way through The Phantom Menace.

It was…nice.

Stiles found himself grinning at the memory too. He forgot about that, about watching movies with Derek, trying to get him to laugh at Comedy Bang Bang, he didn’t know how, but somewhere in the long run that just didn’t-it all slipped away.

That how he ended here, he guessed, staring at an empty space.

_

It couldn’t exactly be called hallucinating, or at least he hoped it wasn’t because that could go under instability-or something seriously wrong. So it wasn’t exactly hallucinating, and Stiles wasn’t exactly seeing things.

He just sometimes asked questions and expected an answer from someone who wasn’t there.  Or sometimes while he was at work, his mind would drift off as it usually did and wonder what Derek was doing in his apartment.

Then there would be the sickening reality, that Derek was doing nothing in his flat.

Or sometimes, something like this, like right now would happen.

Stiles could’ve sworn he heard, screaming, and sure he could totally blame it on some strange noise outside or something, and he probably would later to other people.

But there was no kidding himself in what it actually was.

It was Derek’s scream, unforgettably because it was pure horror; it was the sound of a tortured man. The embodiment of his stare, the reliving of the terrible events that transpired, it was perhaps the only way the world could get a real glimpse into his psyche.

Stiles couldn’t mistake it for anything else.

He was up in an instant, out of his bed, and running out of his room with the covers still around his ankles. Stiles head was in a constant battle. The emotions going from anger to fear to relief and some shock, but mostly, mostly, a resounding: _he’s back!_

Then there was an empty futon, and every time, Stiles should’ve known it would be empty, every time. Sometimes it hit him instantly, like a slap in the face, that he should have known. He should’ve known. He would pick his covers up from the ground and go back to bed.

Other times, it was a slow feeling, the reminder would hit him in stages, a bunch in the gut each time building in intensity until he couldn’t stand it anymore. Then he would go numb all over, and kick the blanket off his foot and crawl into the futon.

It really started to sting when he couldn’t smell Derek anymore on the sheets.

The worst part was he didn’t know why it bothered him so much.

_

He woke up at six o’clock curled up in the middle of his living room on the ratty futon, with star wars still paused on the screen, and the scent of Derek gone from the pillows.

There was no weight around him, and no groan demanding more sleep, and trying to convince him that it wasn’t quite time for him to get ready.

It was today, one month exactly since the date Derek Hale stepped out of his apartment, that he realized something that made him hate Derek a little bit, and himself a whole lot more.

He really fucking missed it.

That’s when he thought why-why did he want it? Why did he miss Derek? He was a fucked up asshole, and all they did was argue, fight, and want to rip each other’s throat outs? Right?

Whatever, missing someone is like a blister. First it’s ugly and obvious, it hurts, burns, but then it slowly disappears into a pink scar before blending into skin altogether.

He didn’t even like Derek. It would not be a problem.

_

“Hey man, you’re kind of slacking there aren’t you? I mean usually, you at least pretend like you don’t hate your job, but today I see no effort whatsoever.” Nate came up right behind Stiles, and bumped him in the back with his circular tray.

Stiles gave him that smile that he always gave Nate. The one that read ‘stop with your shit, and get back to your job’. Because, really, Stiles loved talking to people, but the thing about being a server was you were supposed to be serving, away from each other.

Nate was the most persistent son of a bitch Stiles had ever met.

“What? Nah, man just tired, last night’s workload was rough” It was true. With Lucas out of commission, there had been less order around the place.

It was a chain really. All of the bouncers and security were personally hired. With Lucas gone, they figured it was a vacation for them too; they came in late, left early, or disappeared half way through the night. Some didn’t even come in at all.

Fewer bouncers meant more jerkwads, more jerkwads meant more drinks, and most of all a raise to Stiles’ irritation level. A man can only tolerate his ass getting pinched so much in one night, but thankfully Stiles had been in this business awhile.

“I know right? Fuuuck, you were lucky Lucas came in when he did ‘cause man if that psycho managed to bang Lucas up that bad,” Nate’s whistled was high and a contrasted to his low voice, “imagine what he would have done to you.”

Stiles, the terrible liar that he had always been, licked his lips, and bit his tongue on the way back in, before saying, “Yeah, I’m just born under a star or something, however that goes. You know me, just uh lucky guy, think I’m part Irish.”

Stiles tried to move on ahead, tried to avoid the topic that Nate seemed stuck on.

“Well, I say that’s why business has picked up too, because everyone wants to see if another employee is going to get knocked around by some guy in a wolf mask,” Nate caught up and strode along beside him at his quick pace. The night was just starting-only a few people had wandered in. A place like this got more action later in the night; earlier the bigger ones were the main attractions.

He winked rather suggestively at Stiles, and with all the intention of a cheesy commercial continued, “But it’s Vegas _anything_ can happen…even…” Then to Stiles’ embarrassment he imitated a wolf-howl so loud that nearby heads turned towards them.

His uncomfortable-ness about this entire situation could not even be expressed in words.

It was probably the biggest lie Stiles had ever told in his life. Part of it was for Derek, part of it was for Lucas, and part of it was for Stiles.

Mostly though, it was so that the cops that came to Stiles’ door that night, as he was the only witness to what happened other than Lucas (who they told him was ranting about some wolf man) knew nothing about all three of them.

Stiles’ nudge him, this time more in a light manner, “Someone is actually going to think your own crack. You know what that makes me? The guy that that guy who’s on crack drags around. Not the title I’ve been shooting for.”

Nate slouched back against a machine, and still wore a grin that showed he was clearly as buzzed as Stiles had suspected. In addition to how he was also completely ignoring the customer tugging at his sleeve, until Stiles handed her the drink with an award-winning smile.

When she turned back to her game he spoke again in his overly flirtatious way, that his girlfriend would have laughed at.“As long as you’re with me babe.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, and was very tempted to take out the sour mood he had been in today on Nate by telling to grow up, that life didn’t work out as long as you were with someone, that things weren’t that easy-it didn’t just work that way.

Because Nate was a kid, maybe not in years, but he was still a kid. Lately, Stiles had just wanted to grab him by the shoulders, and tell him that life wasn’t _fair_.

“Yeah, right, with you? You wish, seriously, with your mustache I’m surprised your girlfriend doesn’t catch lice when she’s kissing you.” Nate punched him and he punched back, and then they were both laughing. They looked like two insane servers who clearly were not doing their job.

Nate gestured to the skeptical bartender that they were taking five with a raise of his hand and slid onto the stool. He tossed his platter carelessly on the counter.

They exchanged a series of gestures. The first Stiles pointing to the crowd and giving him the ‘we can get fired’ rise of eyebrows, and then Nate giving him the devilish grin and shrug of shoulders.

It was followed up by Nate patting the seat across from him, and mouthing silently, “don’t be a pussy”.

Stiles sighed, and started to care just a little less when he sat down.

“Hey well she hasn’t said anything and she still sucks my-“

Stiles put both hands over his ears, “Lalalala my innocent ears don’t need to hear this, lalalala.”

He scoffed, “Innocent? I seem to remember you had a certain friend a month back who left you _limping_ ”

The heat rushed to Stiles’ face. He ducked his head down and used the back of his arm and hand as a shield. It was both from embarrassment about the subject being brought up again, the actual event itself, and how much he did not want to talk about it.

“What ever happened to him? I miss your ‘I’m getting some’ vibes, I could point you out to people and they’d know.” He was over exaggerating, and Stiles knew it, because Nate over exaggerated everything, especially the more sexual it got.

It still worried Stiles. Did he act like a teenager again when he was with Derek? Did he really have that much of an influence?

“Nothing, he just um, had some stuff to deal with. He couldn’t stay. He’s the uh…coah of this um, team, and they need more recruits. “ He looked everywhere but Nate, at the flashing lights, at the drinks, anywhere.

“Oh…” Nate’s playful, chirpy voice, was turning somber, “Is he coming back?”

Stiles stood up, and he didn’t mean for it to be a dramatic gesture or anything, their five minutes was just up. It also worked out where he wouldn’t have to see Nate’s stupid face.

In the process of collecting his drinks again, he answered, “No…no I don’t think so. It was kind of a one time deal, we’re just not a good thing, you know?”

No matter how obnoxious and lazy he was. Stiles would always remember this moment. This one right here, when he grabbed Stiles’ arm, and stopped him from moving away.

 “Woah, woah man you okay?”

That was Stiles’ cue to tip his head up in a nod, a half grin, and the response, “Totally cool, bro, ‘m good.”

Stiles was better without Derek.

‘Stiles and Derek’ didn’t roll off the tongue like ‘Allison and Scott’. It was clear, they weren’t meant to be together. If two people weren’t supposed to be together, shouldn’t they be better-happier-apart? That’s how it was supposed to go right?

Stiles knew he was better without Derek around, because he could focus. The question that just created more, and there was only unclear mumbled answers for was:

Was he happier?

_

Three days later Lucas returned to work. Stiles, of course, already knew. Even if their relationship wasn’t traditional, even if Lucas could be indecisive about his feelings, they still had been communicating this entire time.

Yeah Stiles visited when he asked, the first time to clear up what happened, and the second to see how far he could get with Stiles until someone noticed. While he was recuperating Stiles had been over, and they were getting along fine-he seemed to have agreed with Stile’s story.

However they had not had sex, they would get to that point, and he would stop them from progressing, yell at Stiles, raise his hand, but never hit him.

On the night Lucas returned he lied and told everyone he was still recovering, left early, and brought Stiles home with him. That night it was different, different then it had ever been.

He drove a sleek black Mercedes with smooth leather interior, and an alien-control system. He always parked into the darkest part of the alley, where his car, and tinted windows blended into the night.

Stiles didn’t even get his seat belt on before his head was forced against the window. Blunt fingertips dug into his scalp and into the sensitive spot right above his ear.

“Wha?”

Without a noise, he dragged Stiles’ legs out from his original position, and with a yank, twisted Stiles’  body to the left so his feet barely touched the driver’s door. Lucas had also changed positions, one leg between Stiles’, one bumping against the steering wheel. His left hand balanced himself on the middle console while the right clutched at Stiles’ throat.

“You know, I thought it was karma…”

Stiles was surprised, at first, because of the change in attitude lately. That look in his eye though, that way he grit his teeth when not speaking, but when he did every word was in a hiss. Right before the screaming, the hitting, he was coiled and ready to strike.

But this time, Stiles had no idea was he was saying.

He left a long trail of saliva behind Stiles’ ear, then bites all down his jaw and neck. “Some freakish monster coming and beating the shit out of me, sounds like some fucking karma right there.”

This was…confusing. Stiles was ready for the first one, but it had usually come by now, this was too much foreplay. Stiles already prepared, his senses were numb now, the only thing to get over was the impact of the first-and then he could tolerate all the other.

But it usually came by now.

A hand slid under his shirt, the Rolex watch rubbed against his naval. “But when I saw you tonight, I figured.” Then he froze at the waistband of Stiles pants, his fingers inched in one by one, “The karma wasn’t for me, it was for you.”

Stiles didn’t understand what he meant, and he wouldn’t until two nights later.

Lucas didn’t hit him.

In some ways the sex was worse. Stiles usually just accepted the beatings, he could, he was that type of person, this was life and he had to adjust to it. This time though, there was something he couldn’t shake off.

It made him feel dirty. Even when he got home and showered there was something there, something under his skin.  He felt like he was coated in a layer of mud.

And Derek, Derek was there in his head. He was in the darkness and told him the same thing over and over.

_“You’re better than this Stiles.”_

_

He spent most of the day after sleeping and showering. He must have used up his water for the next three days by the time he was done. Work that night too went by in a flash.

Lucas wasn’t around; he spent most of his time retraining new staff, because after he figured out how many had been slacking in his absence a purge was necessary. That slimy feeling from before was starting to control Stiles’ brain, and he wondered if it was some how connected to how he couldn’t shake the memories away either.

_“It would be better than the shit you have going no here! You’re better than this Stiles!”_

Of all the things they argued about, that had been just one line, just one passing sentence. So why, _why,_ did that one thing keep repeating in his head.  He couldn’t figure it out.

There was only one thing he could do to help. So when he got home, he slept for about three hours, but during that sleep, things got worse.

_“Do you know you take forever in the bathroom? Seriously, I should start calling you princess Derek because you have definitely been in there for over a half an hour.” Stiles leaned against the back of the door, with his head tilted upwards, and shouting into the bathroom._

_Derek opened the door inwards, and Stiles crashed back. His feet slipped, from not being prepared for his backrest to give away, and he slammed onto Derek’s chest. Derek caught him under the arms, stopped him from falling, and then proceeded to drop him._

_“Whatever I spend, you take_ at least _double_ ,” _he stepped over Stiles limbs and out of the room, “and if you_ ever _call me a princess, I will rip your fucking throat out.”_

_Even though it was a completely menacing threat, Stiles found himself on the floor in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. Derek Hale had used the word princess, and it sounded just as ridiculous as one would expect._

He woke up completely shocked, covered in sweat, and wondering why that had suddenly popped into his mind.

 So he did what he always did when things got fucked up.

He called Lydia Martin for advice.

Most people would be pretty put off by this. Why when you felt like shit, would you call the most sarcastic, smart-ass girl, who unintentionally made people feel like shit? Why was that a good idea?

Stiles guessed it was because Lydia didn’t hold back, she didn’t pull any punches, she was confident in whatever she said and wasn’t afraid to say it. There was never any second-guessing with her, and Stiles trusted Lydia more than anyone else.

“Hello?” Her tone was as it always was, perky and a little bit irritated. Especially at what? Eight o’clock in the morning?

“Heeey Lydia, so I was just calling to you know-“

She immediately cut him off, “What’s wrong Stiles?”

He made exasperated gasps of noise, “Ah, hah,” then continued in the same slightly offended way, “why do you think something is wrong? I could be calling to check up! ‘Hey Lydia? How’s your life been?’”

She sounded bored-Lydia always sounded bored, “Because lately you only call me to bitch about your love life.” Stiles could picture her now, tilting her head to the side, staring up at the ceiling in contemplation, “You know, it was almost more entertaining when you called to confess your love to me.”

Stiles grinned, and as casually as possible slid in, with a shrug of his shoulders, “Well we can always try that again, if you want to I’d be up for it-“

“Oh my God,” She was probably rolling her eyes right now, “just get on with it.”

That was how Stiles’ ended up confessing his entire life to Lydia. He fudged a few details, like his abusive relationship, and his extreme debt. But he thought that he got across that he was in a position where he could not leave.

 He was out of breath by the time he was finishing up, “and then I keep thinking about like when we weren’t actually trying to kill each other Which was like only ten percent of the time, but _still_ it’s there, in my like my head, Lydia. I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s like haunting me or something. There’s got to be a movie on this, I think we’ve seen it together, actually I’m positive. But it won’t go away. It’s like that time when Scott got wolf pox, or whatever that was, it’s worse than that Lydia.” He was almost hyperventilating by the end of it. Stiles was afraid he was going to go into a panic attack. But after he took a break, Lydia answered just in time.

“Sounds like you’re addicted.” She held all the concern and interest as if she was only watching a movie, but that was how Lydia usually talked, so there was no point in taking it to heart.  

Instead he was confused. “Addicted? To what?”

“Derek,” she was probably doing something mundane like painting her nails, and her phone was lying on the bed on speaker from the crackling sounds it was emitting. “I’ve been following your love life for years Stiles, and it sounds like to me you’ll never be able to get over him. Sounds like you’re _addicted_.” She spoke the last word with emphasis, spice. She knew how it sounded, and wanted to make sure he was aware.

Stiles was at loss of what to say. In some strange way it made sense. Derek was a drug, something he knew he shouldn’t be involved with, something he felt bad about after, but for those brief instances, that brief euphoria-it was worth it.

Or maybe it was the challenge; Stiles liked challenges, no matter how much he complained. He liked having his will tested. Or maybe it was because he liked being able to unleash anger on someone-being able to fight and get anger and not fucking caring what they thought.

There were so many, too many possibilities.

So maybe he was addicted, maybe they both were.

He swallowed, twice, three times, before speaking again, “Well, what do I do about it?”

“Go find him.”

Stiles mind sputtered at the very thought of it, go after Derek? Go find him? That was insane! “What? Lydia you know that I greatly admire you to a point of love, but are you crazy? I can’t do that! I can’t leave here!” Then with a little more sass in his tone than he meant, “Besides it wasn’t _my_ fault Lydia! Seriously! He has to be the one who comes here.”

The next thing Lydia said was something Stiles had not been expecting. At first she repeated what he told him carefully, “Stiles it sounds like Derek really botched things up in the past, but right now, it sounds like this is all you.” Then she spoke with a touch of disdain like she was speaking to an adolescent child who was pestering her, “Stiles, sweetie, listening has never been your strong suit. You told him to leave so it’s only natural that you get him back.”

Then she sighed, and finished with, “Go get him, make-up, have sex, whatever that happens.”

Stiles never got truly angry at Lydia, often he was pissed at her, because Lydia had several dislikeable character traits, but he could never truly be upset. Right now though, right now he was furious.

It wasn’t because she called him a poor listener; it was not the first time he heard that. Stiles knew that over the years, he developed a tendency to jump to conclusions, and skip over the information that was given.

He was angry because she made it sound so easy, like Stiles was stupid for not thinking of such a simple solution. That it was completely possible to just leave everything behind and chase after Derek Hale.

He yelled into the phone at such volume that his voice was stained when he finished, “I can’t just do that Lydia, I can’t leave here there’s too much. Things wouldn’t work out-they don’t magically fall into place, and who knows if Derek would even listen. I mean he’s not that guy, and I’m not that guy either. There’s too much baggage there’s too much going on there’s just _too_ _much_.” He was gone, emotions started to blend with words. “It’s not one of your movies Lydia, it’s not a fairytale, it’s not happily fucking after. It’s _life_.”

There was dead silence on the other end. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t speaking, and Stiles was worried that she had been genuinely hurt by him.

Then after a bit there was a tch-ing noise, and Lydia spoke again, with more severity then she had this entire conversation-or any conversations for that matter.

“You’re right Stiles, this is life.” Her words were clipped but as clear as ever, “but it is also _your_ life.”

She hung up the phone before Stiles could understand what she meant.

_

The conversation did not clear up anything. Stiles was actually more confused than ever, and at work that night he walked around in that haze. The many things to contemplate took up most of his attention. He wasn’t even realizing his mistakes. He spilled drinks, let people flirt, in passing grope him, he didn’t even register any words that Nate was saying.

Because, he couldn’t get their conversation out of his mind, he couldn’t get the fact out that maybe it was an addiction. When he thought that, memories resurfaced, and not just memories from Derek’s recent stay but from the past. They were events that transpired from when he was a teenager.

He didn’t even think about it when Lucas called him into his office.

He knew something was coming-he knew it had to be after how strange he acted before. But it was kind of funny. Was that the word he should be using? Because it was only funny in a sad hopeless sort of way, that other people would cringe at and call him mentally deranged. He had so many other things on his mind that he wasn’t even worried about having the shit beat out of him-he thought that was a little bit ironic, a little bit darkly funny.

Lucas sat behind his desk, his hands folded under his chin and his eyes locked on Stiles as soon as he entered the room. Stiles tried to clear his mind, tried to give Lucas the full attention he demanded, but it was more difficult then ever before.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Lucas spoke in his low way. His way of showing that he was the boss-he was dominant in this relationship.

“Have you thought about what I said the other night?”

Stiles searched his brain. Several other things had happened within that time period of two nights ago and those were the things fresh in his mind. He clearly remembered the after effect, but not what actually happened.

He moved closer when Lucas beckoned him with a waggle of his finger. He bit the corner of his mouth and raised his eyebrows before recovering some semblance of the conversation. “Um about the karma thing? I’m sure it wasn’t that. Things like this happen all the time. I mean it’s _Vegas_ , he probably was just some psycho who thought he was a werewolf or something.”

He pushed back from the desk, and moved closer to Stiles. Fingers brushed along his neck and traced his Adam’s apple when he swallowed.

“You know, one thing I like about you Stiles is that you’re always funny. Always have a joke. It’s cute, in a way.”

This was…abnormal. Stiles gulped again, and those fingers traced the spot before lowering down to toy with the skin around his collarbone. “Uh, thanks, usually people think it’s kind of annoying, like I don’t know when to stop. I personally think it’s entertaining but…”

Lucas wasn’t listening to him. He was just staring at where he caressed Stiles.  “But you don’t understand do you?” His free hand slowly popped the buttons to Stiles’ vest, until it sagged off his shoulders.

“I do, I just don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

Stiles didn’t know what set Lucas off. It was always different things; he could never tell what exactly made him go from being normal to…something else. He knew the signs of when the progression started to go from something else to something really bad, but never the trigger that caused the switch.

He stopped unbuttoning Stiles’ white shirt, and fisted the material until it was tight on his shoulders. He whispered now, with a harsh growl, and his thumb dug into Stiles’ windpipe.

“No, you don’t understand you fucking _twat_.”

He pushed Stiles’ backwards, so his body was up against the wall, and one leg crushed against the nearby chair. He held him by the forearms now, and made sure his torso was pinned up immobile.

“God didn’t send that wolf to punish me…”

That was when Stiles noticed it. It wasn’t Lucas’ usual look that he got before he hit Stiles. There was something different. His eyes were wider, his pupils dilated. His teeth weren’t gritted, but mouth twisted in a smile, with his nose crinkled up just to accommodate how large it became.

Lucas was…he was gone.

“It was to remind me to punish you.”

The first blow was to Stiles’ rib followed by one to his gut that had him curled in on himself and coughing spastically.

“Because, when he hit me, it was to say that I hadn’t been doing my job, I hadn’t been sufficient in what I was supposed to be doing.”

An elbow crashed down on the top of Stiles’ head.  Stiles later wondered if it was because he was hit so fiercely that he blacked out for a second. He was knocked temporarily unconscious, and that was how he pictured it.

That was the reason he heard Lydia’s voice just for a second, faint, and barely intelligible.

_““You’re right Stiles, this is life…but it is also your life.”_

Then there was Derek. His vision went out, and he could hear Derek right in his ear. Yelling at him, screaming at the top of his lungs, trying to break through the barrier that separated them.

_ “You knew I had the money why didn’t you come to me?” _

_  “If I knew this, was the alternative, than I would have.” _

_  “It would be better than the shit you have going no here! You’re better than this Stiles!”   _

_ “You always assume we can’t be around each other without it being fucked up.” _

_ “You’re better than this Stiles!” _

When he was pulled up by the collar, vision return to him, spotted and slow. The voices disappeared when he bit his tongue after a punch to his lower jaw and blood rushed into his mouth both from there and his split lip. 

It hurt. Everywhere hurt. Lucas wasn’t stopping-Lucas had gone past crazy, there was something different, this wasn’t okay anymore this needed to stop. Stiles wanted this to stop now. 

He was tired of this. 

_ “You’re better than this Stiles!” _ That time, those words in his head, weren’t Derek’s.

They were his own. 

He worked his leg up and kneed Lucas hard right in the groin. Then using the minimal knowledge he held onto from what his father taught him used the end of his palm against Lucas’ chin while he was bent over. 

It was enough of a distraction for Stiles’ to stumble away and out. He could hear him calling after, “Come back here you fucking slut.”

 He could hear footsteps followed him, but he didn’t stop, didn’t look back. He had no doubt that Lucas wasn’t moving very fast. 

Of course Stiles couldn’t either. There had to be some damage done to his rib, and he had to limp across the casino to get to his jeep. 

He couldn’t go home, that was for sure. Lucas would know where to find him, he would hunt him down, and he would make sure that Stiles’ wouldn’t even be able to remember what happened. Who knows, maybe Lucas would still be able to find him, Stiles wouldn’t put it past him. 

He probably should’ve gone to the hospital. His lip was bleeding severely, his entire mouth tasted like metal and salt and sweat, but he didn’t. 

He wasn’t quite sure of how things were going to work out once he got there, but he definitely knew where he was going. 

‘Why?’, was completely different. But hey, Stiles always used to play too many video games, drink a little too much, and always spent too much time doing other things than sleeping. 

What could he say? He was prone to addiction.


	9. Chapter 9

Stiles should know by now that things always didn’t work out the way he planned. He actually came up with fairly good ideas, and when they did occur properly-the results were excellent. But lately, that had not been the case.

So, he shouldn’t really have assumed the very basics of things.  He shouldn’t have just thought that Derek would be in his house, and in a stable enough condition that they would be able to fight, argue, and Stiles had not exactly figured out what would happen after that.

But he did not even think for a second, in that car ride that Derek would be in the state that Stiles’ found him.

The drive was about five hours, and by the time Stiles was on the freeway the sun was beginning to rise. Thankfully, there wasn’t a whole bunch of traffic because most people did not driving between these hours.

He was going to find Derek, he was going to find Derek, and give him a piece of his mind.  What was left of it, he guessed. Stiles had given Derek so many pieces of his mind over the years that he wondered if there was any left to give.

That was kind of funny right?

One of the weird quirks that Derek Hale possessed was that if he lived somewhere even if it was the shit holes of shit holes, he’d stay there. After he permanently marked his territory, you would have to drag him out by the claws.

The Hale house was an exception; the Hale house had been stolen from him by the hunters. But Derek always considered it _his_. It probably would be better for him to move out entirely, so that he was not such an easy target, but for some reason he just couldn’t.

Every time they’d take over, he would leave, only for a while, and they fight his way back in.

Or at least that’s how it used to be.

So with the current war going on, Stiles figured it was better to check Derek’s flat first.

It was a terrible little thing. Hidden in back alleys, with a direct entrance to where he’d train new pack members, the walls outside were cracked and disgusting. There were puddles along the pathways to the doorstep, and the liquid they consisted of looked nothing like normal water

Then there was moss. Or at least something like moss. It grew up the fire escape, bubbling up from it, like some green sponge stuck on tight. There was only one or two apartments above his.

Stiles once asked if Derek knew who occupied those. He never answered.

Stiles wasn’t surprised that the place looked worse than before. It wasn’t horribly worse-like they weren’t falling into each other. But that rust color that they once were had faded into an indescribable shade.

There were more cracks, a dent in the side. The one window was broken. Shards of glass fell out onto the ground, but Stiles assumed the majority of which landed inside.

Huh, you would think Derek would at least want to clean that up. He wasn’t a huge slob. The inside, Stiles remembered, was always fairly clean, and he tried to avoid any more hazards than necessary.

Stiles didn’t really think about it too hard.

He should have.

_

Stiles would never know if the door was locked or not. As soon as he knocked on the wood it collapsed.

Well, not collapsed really, it was a very slow fall; slow enough for Stiles to barely dodge. It hung on it’s rusted hinges for a fraction of a second before toppling onto the ground, and brining up a cloud of dust with it.

When Stiles looked over the door, a sense of panic set in. It wasn’t just any panic; it was a terrible dread feeling that cut the air in his throat.

It wasn’t because the other side of the door was completely destroyed, or the wood was peeled off, or because of the dents in various places. None of those things freaked Stiles out as much as the marks stretched from the center all the way down to both corners.

Not just any marks though, claw marks, marks made with once human nails that transformed into something else.

He should have approached stealthily he should have thought rationally, he should have revaluated what he was getting into.

But he didn’t.

Instead he ran into a room, only lit by the sunlight through the windows and doors. He could only see faint outlines of furniture-as if a thick black sheet had been draped over every object.

“Derek…?”

The reply he received was not of any understandable words. Mostly it sounded like a low growl, animalistic, with the snarl trailed at the very end.  It was the kind that struck a chord a fear in Stiles.

He knew that sound, he knew that all control was now lost.

“Derek, man, if that’s you, this _really_ isn’t funny.”

Stiles saw a flash of bright red eyes before he was thrown to the ground. Derek was fully transformed and right on top of Stiles. His claws dug into his shoulders, and teeth bore against Stiles’ throat.

He could feel Derek’s sweat, drool, dripping onto him, and hot breath on his face. He was hardly recognizable now fully transformed.

Stiles had a feeling, or at least hoped, hoped more than anything else that this was actually Derek Hale, and he wasn’t just assuming.  He wished he could have said that there was something that reminded him of Derek-some familiarity.

He was just relaying on hope.

“Derek, Derek, hey listen I don’t know what’s going on, but you have to snap out of it dude.”

He lifted Stiles up by his collar so his feet hovered just above the carpet. Just as he could feel the material dig into the back of his neck, and he was about to make another plea; Derek dropped him.

He turned away, nose high, and stalked through out the room. Finally, when he reached the spot he was looking for, he began to attack. He slashed his claw over it in fast, untiring motions. He only took breaks from that to lean forwards and bite.

This was all getting him absolutely nowhere though, and there was a significant reason for it. Derek was fighting thin air. He was trying to rip something to shreds that no one else could see.

Stiles rose off the ground, and with his hands in front of him, began to carefully approach. “Derek…Derek…It’s me, it’s Stiles.”

He stopped for a second, looked over his shoulder, and continued his prior action.

_“When you’re there, they’re gone. All of them. You’re normal. I want normal.”_

Stiles was about to use up the rest of his bravery storage for the month. It wasn’t that he wasn’t courageous, it was just this-this was insane. He came up behind Derek, and grabbed one of his deformed shoulders.

“What you’re seeing man, it isn’t real. It isn’t there, you’re uh hallucinating I guess. Or at least I hope you are.”

He whirled around and clutched the wrist against his shoulder. He twirled Stiles arm around, at an angle where Stiles had to move his entire body to accommodate it. Derek leaned his massive body forwards, inches away from Stiles’ face, and hissed once, long and wild.

“There’s nothing here, whoever you are seeing they’re not _there_ ” There was no response, no change, and Stiles continued to beg, “But I’m here, and last time I checked I’m real.”

The claws began to dig into his wrist until they were on the point of breaking skin, and Stiles could feel his arm being pulled out of the socket in Derek’s strange grasp. Stiles could feel sweat begin to drip down his forehead and his heart was going through these quick pounding beats.

“C’mon man, you know they aren’t here too.”

That’s what did it.

Stiles wasn’t actually sure if Derek ever understood anything that he was saying, or if it was just him processing the entire time. Whatever it was however it worked, Derek changed back.

He dropped Stiles arm, and his body began the rather disgusting series of changes back to human. He shrunk in size, his fingernails shrunk back to normal; his facial feature began to expand to regular.  

As soon as he was completely transformed, he let go of Stiles’ wrist and slumped forwards. He was just barely conscious, his eyelids fluttering, and Stiles caught him sort of.

He lunged forwards, wrapped his arms around Derek, and they both crashed to the floor.

Whenever people would talk about awkward stories with their exes, Stiles would be able to defeat the competition by saying that his vomited and then fainted in his arms.

Thankfully, the first action avoided Stiles body, but when he fainted after, his body lay on top of Stiles like a sack of meat.

_

Derek was still out when Stiles detangled himself. The man looked deathly pale. He wasn’t hurt anywhere-and Stiles could see everything, so checking more thoroughly was not really needed.

He just looked exhausted.

The rest of the apartment was destroyed too. The bed was torn open, dresser split down the middle, and Stiles had to avoid the broken wood to fish out some pants. Then the awkward, clearly embarrassing part was when he had to wiggle said pants onto Derek’s body. It was way more of a sexual action then Stiles had been intending to perform, especially with an unconscious Derek.

There was another thing he was worried about.

Scott answered on the second ring.

“Hey! So I have a question, how long is it possible to be in wolfy form?”

Then something weird happened, Scott’s voice didn’t sound normal. It didn’t sound slightly confused but generally happy, like a puppy. It sounded frigid, stiff, the one he used when he was refusing to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

Which was difficult for Scott, because he always gave people second chances, and could look at them with an unbiased opinion.  He was willing to forgive people, and see them as who they were now and not as their prior mistakes.

However this was the voice he used when he refused to do any of the above.

“I don’t know, Stiles. I have been in it for really long.”

Stiles was a little freaked out, because he knew that tone, and he also knew that it never applied to him. He never spoke like that to Stiles; sure the silent treatment had interrupted their friendship a couple of times, but this, Scott never spoke like this.

“You okay, man?”

Scott was lying, and Scott was actually a good (surprisingly) liar if he wanted to be. So when he spoke a very weak, “Yeah, I am totally fine.” It was not convincing at all-and he didn’t want it to be either.

Stiles eyed Derek still passed out on the couch, and continued on, “are you sure okay?”

Then Scott just asked abruptly, “Why are you asking? About the wolf thing, I mean.”

Stiles chewed on his bottom lip. If Scott was with him, and if the scene didn’t give it away already, he would be able to tell. He chewed on the raw broken part of the scab, and that swarm of guilt for lying to his best friend swirled in his throat.

“Nothing just out of uh curious curiousness.”

Scott sighed, “You’re not Doctor Seuss Stiles.” Then quieter, in a hushed sad tone, “You didn’t kick him out did you?”

Stiles swallowed what felt like a foot in his throat, and licked his now bleeding open lip. Okay, okay, this was pretty bad. Scott sounded pissed off. But that wounded pissed off. He was making that puppy-dog pissed face.

“How did you know?”

“Lydia told me.” Stiles made a little protesting noise, just the start of a letter, but Scott instantly cut him off with something of a mixture of a groan and whine. “How could you, Stiles? You said you’d make him leave. And how could you _tell her before me_? Seriously, Stiles I’m your best friend.” Then he sounded sad, really sad, like someone had physically wounded him, “Aren’t I?”

Stiles groped the air for words, and paced back and forth in the kitchen.  That little conniving Lydia, she probably did this on purpose-she knew of his and Scott’s estrangement, but she always acted as if she didn’t _care_. That’s why Stiles liked talking to Lydia because she acted so unbiased-he hoped deep down that she was, but still.

“You are! You so are! I just always thought you were busy with Allison because you two were toget-“

Scott was infuriated, “What? This is about _Allison_? Stiles all you had to tell me was that something was happening and I would’ve-Oh my God.”

“I know, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, and I’m a bad friend but I thought you were busy. I should’ve called you first.” Stiles words started to run into each other.

Derek was starting to make quiet protests that signaled all the noise was starting to awaken him. Stiles knew he would have quite a bit of explaining to give, the destroyed house, Derek’s shirtless-ness, oh and just his presence in general.

Stiles hated himself for what he said next “Can I call you back?”

It was like Scott hadn’t even heard the last sentence, “It’s not just that. I-I don’t even know where you live, Stiles. Ever since your dad got hurt, I don’t know anything about your life. An-and you won’t visit me, and you won’t let me visit you, I haven’t even _seen_ you Stiles.” Scott didn’t seem like a twenty-seven year old, but instead like he was ten, and Stiles betrayed their promise, “ _You_ were the one who said it was us against the world.”

Stiles couldn’t even believe what was happening, that this was happening now. And he liked to just push it aside as a feeling that this was just incredulous timing, but it was worse than that. Stiles felt horrible-this day was just a built up of horrible.

He knew that right now he couldn’t deal with this, couldn’t handle this confession his best friend just made. He could not just bring out this long speech about his life-he could not just reveal all of his deepest secret he had hoarded to himself over the past year.

It just wasn’t the time.  Because that was for sure an in-person sort of thing, and also Stiles now felt this dying want to see Scott, but not here. Not in this particular place.

So instead, he gave Scott all he could at this moment, “well right now, I’m at Derek Hale’s house.”

Scott cursed under his breath. “Jesus Christ Stiles.” Then he was distracted, as if playing with his phone or something, “just hold on-I’ll get there.”

“Scott! It’s a sixteen hour drive!”

Then Scott was using that voice that went along with his goofy smile, and Stiles could picture it-and after what they just discussed it actually pained him.

“Yeah, that’s a lot of time for you to do something stupid, so don’t screw up Stiles.”

Stiles rubbed his forehead, because well fuck. He felt like the biggest douche in the entire friggin’ world. His best friend, he knew he had been alienating him for reason that he thought were somewhat good, but his _best friend_. Shit.

_

It was around fifteen minutes later (enough for Stiles to clean up some of the excess blood he missed off his face) that Derek woke up. Stiles was in the bathroom at the time, but he heard the quite loud groan from the other room.

Over these fifteen minutes Stiles must have pictured at least a dozen different scenarios. One would be Derek would wake up just with something resembling a hangover, his eyes would be blood shot, legs a little wobbly, and head throbbing. In another, he would be totally okay but have zero memory of what happened and begin to accuse Stiles of making everything up. Another was a combination of the both. There were many more-the list went on and on, but there was one, one that made him pale with fear.

What if Derek woke up and instantly changed back into a werewolf?

What if he couldn’t change back?

That was ridiculous, completely impossible, unheard of right? Right? No way it would happen to Derek.

So he approached the living room slowly, with a fry pan he stole from the kitchen in his hand. He wondered if Derek ever used it, it was a funny image-Derek cooking along.

Distracted, Stiles, Distracted. He peeked over the hallway corner, and tried to get a good look of the couch. 

Derek was still there, in his human form.

Stiles probably never felt more relief in his life.

Still, he couldn’t just casually stroll up and be like, ‘hey so I walked in on you wolfed, knocked you out (unintentionally), put some pants on you, and then kind of went to wipe off the blood all over my face-yeah that takes more explanation.’ It wasn’t going to be that easy.

Instead he presented himself in the living room, and started from behind, “Hey Derek, looks like you’re back to…human-y.”

Derek practically jumped up, er well rolled off the couch. He sat up abruptly, at least. He was facing Stiles, when he spoke and only failed to notice him because his hand was covering his face, and rubbing his eyes into his skull.

It got Derek’s attention, and his head snapped up to Stiles. He wasn’t overcome with shock, there wasn’t some mouth gaped, eyebrow raised expression, and instead he looked rather in pain.

By rather, Stiles meant a great deal.

When he tried to sit up, Stiles watched as his upper body muscles spasm at that slight motion. He groaned, low and throaty, the noise sounded far from human, and far from Derek. Like someone else was making that agonized sound behind him, and Derek was just the one mouthing along.

“Heeeey.” He started again, his head dipped and hand raised in a very awkward wave.

Derek made another strange noise through gritted teeth when he sat up so the small of his back rested against the ripped edge of the couch. “ _Shit._ What are you doing here?”

Stiles felt like he was always walking a thinning edge with Derek-it was always changing size on their moods and situations-shrinking, expanding, whatever. Right now, it felt like Stiles feet were wobbling off the sides.

“Well, I came to tell you off, but when I got here you were in full wolf mode. And trying to find a way to kill the air.”

“Shit.” Derek tried to stand but his legs did not seem to be able to bend properly off the bed, and he reached a halfway stand still. “Shit. I can’t remember how long, shit.”

Stiles shuffled forwards again, sort of like a wind-up toy that was taking too long between steps. “So, uh I have full intention to bitch you out, just so you know, but I sort of want to know why you were all Alpha-ed out, and trying to kill some invisible thi-“

He replied immediately, “This is all your fault.”

Stiles mouth fell into that slack jaw stretched lipped, expression. “ _My_ fault? It’s not my fault that you got high off of Alpha fumes, and can’t remember! I mean I’m pretty sure I just _saved_ your ass without hitting you with acid or a frying pan.” He less then sneakily dropped the object in his hand then, and kicked it under the couch.

“I can’t remember how long, Stiles.” He said in that irritated, you’re a complete moron, voice. His wolf-ness was starting to kick in and he was able to move more fluidly. He pushed himself off of the couch, and with still slightly unsteady steps moved towards Stiles. “Being an Alpha helps you stay in control, keeps you from blacking out, this wasn’t-fuck. This is all your fucking fault.”

This time Stiles raised his arms up in the air, before slapping them back down against the side of his thighs. ”How is it my fault?”

Derek was just close enough now, just close enough to hiss under his breath, to make the room turn into just his whisper, “you told me to leave.”

Stiles mouth was as dry as a desert. He snapped it shut, and he felt like he couldn’t even regenerate enough saliva to even speak. When he finally could, the sentence was lame, not deserving of what he should be saying, and not everything that he wanted to say.

Guilt was there too. Smacked him in the stomach, and it wasn’t right-it wasn’t fair.

“And you left.” There was silence then; the dreadful silence, and the silence that made Stiles feel like it would never be filled. He kicked the carpet. “But you’re better now, so that’s not _anyone’s_ fault.”

Derek interrupted him again before he could finish, before he could take that last breath. He spoke nonchalantly too, as if it didn’t matter to him, what he was saying now was just as simple as the time of day.

“Tell me off.” It was an order in Derek’s demanding voice. No, not an order, a challenge.

“What?”

Derek rolled his shoulders and his expression was downright, evil, plotting, everything that Stiles knew pointed to a bad idea. “That’s what you came here to do.”

Stiles rehearsed this speech so many times in his head. Imagined how he would walk in and tell Derek how everything was so messed up, and how he should’ve tried to make it work, how they both should’ve tried to make it work, he would question why the current version of himself wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t so much of telling off, but instead yell for answers that he deserved.

Now, in the heat of the moment everything he prepared was gone.  “I thought, I don’t know. You came to me when I was like how I was then; you _slept_ with me when I changed too much apparently. That was extremely not cool. And you’re just such an _idiot_.” He was out of breath by the time he finished, and finally muttered, “Fuck it I’m out of here.”

The more agonizing moment was when he walked past Derek.

Because everything truly lay in that moment, whether Derek stopped him or not. Whether Derek grabbed his arm, and kept him here, prevented him from going, and they would stay together longer, long enough to work things out or screw them up even more.

Or if Derek let him go, and that would be it, that would be the end. Stiles would walk out of Derek’s life, and he didn’t know where he would go next, probably to his dad, or to find Scott to fix that (shit Stiles couldn’t even believe he messed that up too). But Stiles knew that if Derek didn’t stop him, right now, it would all be over.

It was a terrible moment.

Then Derek’s hand reached out and grabbed Stiles forearm.

Stiles didn’t struggle, he didn’t tense up, and instead he just relaxed into the grip for a second, for a bit to prepare to retaliate for whatever came next. His hand slid off, slow, and lingered over the muscles and bone.

 “You’ve changed too much.”

When Stiles mouth dropped open, and his hands were shaking at his sides from pure fury.

He started to rant, “Well, you know, you’re the same as you were before. You are the same asshole as in the past and you are still aggressive and broody and” His arms flailed, and he was reaching a level of surprising volume, “you haven’t changed at all.”

Stiles zoned out a little during his yelling, he thought that was pretty common in the heat of an argument. People became only focused on their feelings, their words, and less on the other.

“Stiles. You’re irritating.” Derek spoke as if he was reading the definition of ‘Stiles Stilinski’ aloud. “You’re irrational, loud, and stubborn. And that hasn’t changed”

Derek inched forwards a little more. His body was close-close enough where Stiles could feel heat radiating off his bare chest, and his breath on his face.

That didn’t distract him, though, he had been in this position before, and just because he was very aware of their proximity didn’t change anything. “Gee thanks, you know when I said you were an asshole, I meant the king of assholes, and you are the supreme asshole”

“Shut up, and listen.”

“What? So you can insul-“

Derek growled now, low and deep in his throat, “Just shut up for _once_ in your life, Stiles.”

Stiles face wrinkled up. He bit the inside of his cheek, and crossed his arms in the front of his chest. He felt like a child being scolded by an elder. He tilted his head up, avoiding eye contact; until Derek grabbed his jaw and forced Stiles to look at him-to listen to him.

“You’re not the right person I was looking for. You aren’t that horny teenager, who made stupid plans.”

Stiles managed to talk, barely, in the grip. “Hey I remember saving you more than once.” He made another motion to protest, but Derek cut him off.

“Not done.”

He let go of Stiles’ jaw before continuing. His voice was steady; as if he had prepared to say this from the instant he woke up, “Stiles, if you left I would hunt you down.” 

That’s when his breath caught in his throat, and all of a sudden the world started to spin a little faster. He had to cough and scratch the back of his head to play it cool, that meant nothing, the implication Derek was making shouldn’t change anything, it shouldn’t.

But with horror Stiles realized he understood Derek Hale’s attempt at tact and charm.

 “Well that’s romantic…and a little creepy, and a little bad timing.” He shook his head and avoided the solid eye contact Derek was trying to make again, “Sorry nope, not working buddy.”

“I would make sure you couldn’t leave again.”

Stiles wondered if he secretly had a thing for Stockholm syndrome, because wow, he shouldn’t be finding this as impactful as it was. He stumbled backwards, and tripped over his own feet then again over the couch edge just to get away from Derek. But he was relentless, and just kept moving closer, kept going until there was nowhere left for Stiles to back away.

He was position against the wall. The wall that had a long split across the middle, and the coat of paint chipped off. Derek’s face was so close to his, his entire body so close.

He turned his head to the side, and closed his eyes, away from Derek, away from what Derek was trying to do. “Yup. And its still not working, see totally not working. Especially now. Yeah, that’s a good question.”

He angled back so they faced each other, and he could catch a good glimpse of his expression when he asked, “Why now? Why not when things were messed up?”

There was no pause in his answer, no brief moment of consideration, and maybe that’s what brought this whole ordeal on, was because Derek had been using this logic.

“Because you’re here.”

Then he kissed him. It wasn’t like their other kisses, it wasn’t angry and desperate, but it wasn’t gentle either. It was a statement. It was Derek’s way of asserting himself that he wanted _this_ , he wanted this contact with the connection of lips.

Stiles almost immediately pulled away. “Wait, nope, this isn’t going to work. You can’t just kiss me and everything is magically better and we ride off into the sunset, that’s not how it works.”

He banged the arm against the wall. His hand made a hefty thud right above Stiles’ ear, and the surface trembled under the force. He then sighed, as if this was becoming some very arduous mundane task,  “Why not? Why doesn’t it work?”

Stiles, with wide eyes, licked his lips and rolled them together, and tried to scramble together his answer. “Because…we’re both so fucked up. And together we’re like some sort of combustible explosion. If we got together it would be like lighting dynamite! We’re not right.”

“Probably.” Derek didn’t sound convinced, especially when his mouth was brushing up against Stiles’ cheek, and that his voice was so controlled, so calm, and silently demanded Stiles to be as well. “So?”

Stiles sucked in a deep breath, and pushed at Derek’s shoulder to put some space between them. Did he not realize? Did he not understand? “Um I don’t know if that whole alpha time made you lose memory or something, but uh we’ve already tried that and it hasn’t turned out good.”

“Ten years ago?” He said it as if the very idea was stupid-as if it was some silly suggestion that wasn’t even worth mentioning.

“Yeah, we’ll always be thinking about what happened, and looking for signs and it just…” Stiles had trouble saying the next part. It was something he was avoiding for a long time, Derek and his relationship had always been ambiguous, any clarity, any firm ending was scary. “Why are we still doing this? I mean seriously, we have nothing to do with each other, why don’t we both just I dunno…quit?”

“Because I don’t want to.” Derek Hale was clearly still a child

There was another kiss, lighter, briefer, but still ever more present. It was like Derek was slowly trying to break down all of Stiles’ defenses, kiss by kiss, word by word.

Stiles elbowed him again, “Well that’s shit excuse.”

Derek huffed, “What do you want Stiles?” His voice steadily rose in volume, each word slightly snarled but still articulately pronounced, “You didn’t come here just to fucking fight.”

It came out exasperated, “Fuck…fuck I don’t know. I want things to be different. I want there to be some fucking reason for this to work, I want,” He put a hand over his face, and slowly massaged the entire lower half with it before continuing, “I want things to be better, like we skip the sad part of the movie and go back to where the music is all happy, and there’s that whole montage thing. I want _that._ ”

“So why can’t we.” Derek thought _Stiles_ was irrational he thought _Stiles_ was stupid. But this, this was just insane. It wasn’t even said as a question but just a remark, like it was such an oh so obvious thing, and why should Stiles not consider it.

“Because, because life doesn’t it doesn’t-“

“Life isn’t a movie Stiles.” Derek rumbled, “There’s no order. There are no parts.” His hand moved to the back of Stiles’ neck, just resting there. Ready at any second to stop him from moving or to pull him downwards into a kiss. “You can’t predict what will happen.”

“I have a pretty good idea,” he countered, “so do you, I know you do. It all too complicated, too messed up. I mean you see ghosts, and I just got the shit beat out of me.”

“No, it’s not.” Derek quickly said, mannerism unchanged despite Stiles comment on his mental state.

Stiles hated this. Hated how Derek was the one trying so hard. It made Stiles feel bad, because Derek was supposed to be the sour, reclusive wolf, and Stiles was supposed to be optimistic.

That’s how it worked in the past. Had Stiles changed so much to turn into this person who was so tentative? So pessimistic? Was that really him?

Why? Why wasn’t he giving Derek a shot? The obvious reason was because Derek was still an ass who didn’t know how to properly handle people, and was in clear mental trauma that rivaled Stiles’ own. Also that Stiles had come out of their whatever relationship fucked up, and with self-esteem shot to below the ground.

Those reasons were more prominent in Stiles mind, that it beat out the fact that he was a werewolf.

“It is, you have to admit, and there’s too much baggage.”  His voice was weakening, his head was caught up in it’s own debate.

But there was that little part of him, that little minuscule part of him, that was considering this. That wanted to throw all caution to the wind, and fall into an embrace. A part of him that wanted to believe what Derek was saying, to agree that they could forget everything, that life didn’t have to be what Stiles bitterly forced to accept it as.

There was a part of him who wanted that, and Derek was trying to draw it out.

“You keep saying that,” he started again, “and you’re wrong.”

Stiles wasn’t yelling anymore, but instead he was whispering. The message had not come across through shouting so maybe easing the words into Derek’s brain would work more effectively.

Even if Stiles sounded like a broken record, even if he kept repeating the same thing over and over, and even if every time Derek countered it with another argument that just weakened Stiles defenses and caused him to try to defend himself again.

Because Derek hadn’t repaired that scratch, had not fixed that little catch yet.

“I’m not, I don’t know why. Jesus Christ, Derek I need a reason why this could work, why it would ever be a good idea.”

He was curious; he wanted to see what Derek could come up with. He wanted to see if Derek would agree with him, and just come up with some cheesy line that would either have Stiles in bed or out the door.

Or if he would say something that he had been working on for days, if he had been saving it up, storing it for this exact moment.

He didn’t pause, didn’t take a deep breath or any signal that he needed to think about it. The answer was there already. “Because for whatever fucking reason, you’re here and I want you here.” His hand left Stiles’ neck to the back of his head. “You can’t forget or forgive. It’s always there somewhere. But you know what you can do, Stiles?”

Stiles voice was raspy, and the entire world seemed to be hanging off of Derek’s words, only his command could allow it to spin.  “What?”

“Try to.”  
  
That's what did it.  



	10. Chapter 10

Sex with Derek was always awesome. Stiles liked how Derek was always brink of breaking him but never quite there. A little harder, a little faster, and Stiles would probably spontaneously combust.

Okay, maybe that didn’t make it sound pleasant, but it _was_. In a strange, dangerous way, that made Stiles heart pound, blood rush, and head spin.

But this time wasn’t like the others.  There was no animalistic quality.  There was no rush, no over powering force. Sure, Derek still asserted his dominance.

After they slid their mouth together in wet sloppy kisses and Derek dipped his head down to nip at the juncture of Stiles neck and collar bone, and left little ones down in a wavy trail, till he eventually couldn’t go any farther.  He lifted Stiles by his thighs and carried him towards the bedroom.

Then there was the state of the bed. It had a large slash down the mattress and it’s insides were leaking out, even the wood underneath threatened to break at any second. They had fucked in worse. They had broken a bed, and then decided to fuck in it again. This wouldn’t be the most terrible scenario.

But Derek dropped Stiles onto the ground, and ripped the covers, sheets, and pillows off the bed, and threw them to the floor in a mess. With a raise of eyebrows and a roll of his eyes, Stiles hurriedly scrambled across the floor onto the mound of pillows.

Derek demanded that Stiles strip, and Stiles did so at first teasingly, until Derek hit him.

“Just hurry the fuck up.”  He snarled, in the clear identifier that Derek Hale wanted sex now. So Stiles pulled off his many layers of upper clothing, and fumbled with his jeans.

Derek snorted at his failed attempts, “Useless.”

When Stiles managed to get them off he mumbled back, “Hey with the amount of groping that goes on in that casino, it is necessary to have well-secured pants.”

With this Derek yanked Stiles down by his elbows and climbed on top of him. Their kisses in this situation were usually brief, because with the main event so close they were both quite impatient to get past the opening credits.

But Stiles did really like kissing Derek, because it was always different, it was always good. But that didn’t last long before Stiles’ complained about his Alpha breath and Derek moved back to his neck and leave long licks down his torso.

Then he growled all hoarse and sex-driven, “I want you to ride me.”

Stiles didn’t hear this request very often, because usually Derek liked to be in charge, Derek liked to set the pace, and he was really awesome at it so Stiles didn’t really give a shit about dynamics.

But he didn’t mind this opportunity.

Then, Stiles remembered the current state of Derek’s house. He looked around at the completely torn apart-ness of it all. He also sincerely doubted that the one pair of sweat pants he picked happened to have sexual necessities in them.

“Do you have um stuff anywhere?” Stiles very awkwardly asked.

Derek, whether actually didn’t have any or just didn’t feel like looking answered, a quick, “No.” But this wasn’t a ‘oh too bad we can’t do it’. No this was an ‘I’m Derek Hale and I will find a way around this’.

Which seemed to apply to a lot of things.

“So what are we, going to-?” Derek pressed two fingers against his mouth, and Stiles sighed, “Are you serious? Really?”

But he opened his mouth anyways and coated them with a thick layer, before apparently it had both satisfied and turned Derek on too much that he pulled them out with a slurping noise from Stiles.

Derek, in his month of absence, had not lost his touch, and he worked his finger in the same way he knew how always. A small wiggle, a turn, just to ease it in before pressing straight through and hitting that Stiles’ prostrate. At some point of their fuck-buddy relationship thing, he had gotten a good time range down. When Stiles just started to rock back, just the beginning, he would add another.

He knew when two was enough when Stiles started to lose his mind a little bit and became unabashed at his hip thrusts. Also when Stiles began to talk in sentences that didn’t entirely connect.

“Okay, that’s good, yeah, fuck Derk.”

When he pulled them out, Stiles let out this embarrassing whine that if he were completely sane would have him blushing up to his ears. Their position changed in a clumsy mess of limbs until Stiles was kneeling above Derek.

Derek grabbed the top of Stiles head and guided him downwards. Stiles used to be terrible at sucking cock. Now, now he was quite proud of himself after several lessons from Derek in the past.

He knew exactly what to do, especially in a time where they did not have any lube (which had happened in the past at least ten times). Stiles knew that Derek didn’t liked to be licked that much, he liked to be taken into someone’s’ mouth.

That’s what Stiles did, he enveloped Derek’s dick inside until he didn’t need to do anything but hum, and Derek was thrusting into his mouth like he was reaching the main event prematurely.

Stiles developed his own time system, much like Derek, and he knew then was when to pull back. Riding, was more difficult than regular fucking, because Derek still had to worm his control in.

He gripped Stiles hips and positioned him, and then murmured low and throaty, “Ready?”

Stiles waited, “Yeah just give me a sec-“

Derek shoved him down, and Stiles yelped, something along the lines of “you’re a fucking bastard and I hate you”.

But after a second of readjusting, he was bouncing up and down, up and down, to a rhythm that he set. That’s what Stiles’ liked about this, was that he could set the pace, and he could go as fast or slow, as he wanted.

If he stopped or went to slowly, Derek would thrust his hips up violently and demand that Stiles move faster.

To strengthen that threat it would usually be done along with words along the lines of, “if you don’t move I’ll turn and screw you until you can’t fucking move anymore.”

Even though Stiles’ thrusts were more languid than Derek’s. Even if it wasn’t that same wild and animalistic kind, it didn’t take very long. Stiles came quickly, and spilled all over Derek, while Derek had to quickly remove Stiles off of him so he did not come inside, and just made it within a second, and ended up coming all over the inside of Stiles’ thighs.

Sex with Derek was always awesome.

__

Stiles woke up before Derek. The weird part was that it wasn’t Derek who woke him up. He was still sound asleep, no nightmares yet occurred, nothing. They weren’t very close to each other because of the lack of air conditioning in Derek’s home, but his hands were just touching the sides of his waist, and Stiles’ own arms were curled up under his head as a pillow.

Stiles didn’t want to get up. His body hurt, he was still tired, and this moment was supposed to be oddly peaceful. But it did not leave his constantly moving mind totally at ease and he began to think about what happened. Tried to figure everything out, tried to connect things in his brain.

Stiles came to a decision (a decision that would probably change). That the thing about getting older is you never figure out things-you just are able to pretend more convincingly. So maybe he was really…taken with Derek. So maybe some people would classify it as love. He hoped as hell that wasn’t what it was because A) it would be a twisted wrong love, that went against every standard and B) he would actually have to form the phrase “I’m in love with Derek Hale”. That, sent shivers up his spine.

But he was in _something._

Something that made him with an unfortunate urge want to be close to Derek, want Derek to look at him, to kiss him, to fuck him, with an overwhelming need that made everything else insignificant.

Stiles didn’t know if he would be okay without Derek. He’d like to think that it would be like last time-eventually he would get over it with deep wounds carved into his chest. But then he looked sideways at Derek, and there would be that little voice going ‘who the fuck are you kidding?’.

It wasn’t some big revelation as if this realization just occurred to him in this specific moment. No, all of these fleetingly passed at some point over his life span, but always incongruent, with no tangible string to hold them together.

Stiles just always needed to figure out that mysterious, nameless, _something_ , to tie them.

Stiles flicked Derek behind the ear

With his super werewolf sense this of course immediately woke him up. His eyes opened startlingly fast, and not slowly and groggy as one usually does. He grabbed Stiles wrist that was posed to do so again, and growled at him.

“I will kill you Stiles.” Stiles flung his hand up in defeat, and scooted away when Derek released his wrist.

Now, Stiles assumed that Derek must have woken up from that tiny little ear flick. But after what would happen in just a moment, he wondered if that also played a considerable part in Derek’s sudden waking.

Because Derek’s stomach let out a mixture of the most fearsome growl/groan that Stiles had ever heard. It almost rattled the room. Also, made Stiles burst out into laughter.

He rolled to his back and out of Derek’s hands. His words barely intelligible through his giggling, “Holy shit, did you swallow a lion?”

Derek’s glare was completely unbroken, and he wacked the side of Stiles head with the back of his hand.  “I’ve been in wolf-mode, idiot.”

Stiles laughs quieted down at this, and he got up on his knees. During their sleep fought with the blankets. They had somehow all ended up on Stiles side, and pooled around his thighs.

He grabbed one torn half to cover himself as he stood up, and tried to ignore Derek’s leering eyes. “So I’m guessing we should get food before you eat me, but can a shower be in our plans also? Like relatively soon? Because seriously, I smell like sex, dog, and blood. People are going to get wrong ideas.”

“You do _not_ smell like dog.” Derek countered, with a glare at the reference. That one always did work. Stiles wondered if there was some ancient misunderstanding between dogs and werewolves. Maybe he should ask.

_

Even though a shower was Stiles first option, they decided that the time spent there would be too long, and Derek would not be able to enjoy the inevitable sex due to hunger pains.  So they both kind of wiped the extra come and sweat off, as much as the could.

He let Stiles borrow some of his clothes. His smallest shirt, which was a greyish pattern, and a pair of ripped jeans that he had also given him a belt to hold them up with. They looked kind of ridiculous actually-too big around his legs and the shirt draped over him.

He looked _really_ ridiculous.

They shuffled into Derek’s car, and despite Stiles’ constant begging, Derek chose to not give out any information on where they were going. Which was kind of troublesome, but figuring as how Stiles put out last night (err early morning, he guessed), he figured that Derek would not be dragging him off to kill him. Right?

The car drive was longer than he expected, given Derek’s state of hunger, and Stiles wondered if he was taking him to some posh restaurant. One where Stiles wouldn’t even know how to pronounce anything on the menu.

Instead, about two minutes later after he developed that fantasy, Derek drove up to Denny’s.

Stiles almost burst out laughing.

It was busier than the last time they had been here. Stiles calculated later that it was about three in the afternoon, later on, with the help of his phone.

Derek chose the booth nearly in the same position as last time, and then proceeded to order food that could feed the entire Hun army.

When the long process of the check being calculated and the waitress stopped giving him incredulous looks on how the man with a body of a Greek God, could pack away pancakes that probably contributed to America’s obesity, Derek started perhaps the most inappropriate public conversation.

“Your face.” Stiles raised his eyebrows in a look that designated he clearly needed more of a question than that, and Derek rolled his eyes, “Did you?”

Then Stiles swallowed the lump in his throat that built steadily from that event that was just waiting to emerge when the topic was brought up. So with quite an embarrassing voice crack, “yeah, yeah I did, I left, I’m uh here now.”

A moment passed, an excruciating moment, that Derek decided to not respond to Stiles answer. Stiles wondered if he had been secretly hoping he would give him the okay to kill Lucas.

Then, Derek asked a question that rivaled the first in inappropriate-level.

He was calm and smooth, and didn’t even hesitate, “When will you say yes?”

Now, Stiles wasn’t a super human. He wasn’t Derek. He didn’t remember over a month ago, when they sat in another Denny’s and Stiles explained the structure of life to Derek in verbal mumblings. He didn’t remember the exact words. For a while, actually, he had tried to push that time out of his mind.

Derek shouldn’t have assumed that Stiles would be able to just draw the memory out of his head like fucking Dumbledore with a wand. So of course, of course he misunderstood.

That misunderstanding led him to chock on his water, until the entire restaurant thought he was dying. When he recovered he sounded raspy, and more than anything embarrassed. “Um, I’m pretty sure that was equally consensual.”

But Derek was persistent, and he would look over Stiles’ misunderstanding with a huff, and then continue in his you-really-are-an-idiot voice. “No. Yes, your yes.”

“I don’t follow.”

Derek straightened up a little more and in a very snarky, sarcastic tone, mocked Stiles from around a month and a half ago, “yes is for forgiving.”

That triggered the memory. Derek was a sneaky little bastard. He brought him to Denny’s just to get him to talk. He could’ve just gotten Stiles drunk. That would’ve worked the same. Well, that and he would have to deal with Stiles trying to hump everything that moved, but still.

What was Stiles supposed to say? Did Derek expect that now that they had sex Stiles would just forgive everything that happened, ever? That wasn’t, no, Stiles didn’t agree to that. Just because at this moment he didn’t want to kill Derek, didn’t mean he was ready to just embrace a new life where everything from before was a blank slate.

So Stiles couldn’t say anything else, but a weak, “someday.”

It was enough.

It was enough for Derek to take the very long check the waitress gave him, and pay in cash. Before they could leave though, Stiles asked his own inappropriate public place question.

His was quieter though, only a little, because as Scott once told him Stiles was confused on the difference between inside and outside voices. Especially when it came to secret things. Like being a werewolf.

“What were you seeing by the way?”

Derek stood up, straightened his jacket, and did not make eye contact with Stiles. “Not right now.”

He didn’t even notice everyone staring at him, including the chef who popped his head out to see who the hell had managed to eat all of this food, and Stiles gave them a pathetic little wave.

“When?”

Derek, smugly threw an answer right back at him that Stiles should have seen coming.  “Someday.”

-

There was a reason Stiles always drove Scott. It was because Scott was scary. He started off as a safe driver, freakishly safe, safer than Stiles. But then at some point, he just started to decide that driving at drag race speeds was way more fun than normal things.

Of course this rarely happened with anyone else in the car, but Stiles once been inside and he saw his life flash before his eyes.

That was probably how he made record timing, and was standing in Derek’s living room with a very disgruntled expression, mud covered clothes, and dark rings around his eyes.

He was also worried though, worried to the point where he wanted to hug Stiles, but knew that he should be angry instead, knew that he should be yelling instead of hugging, because that was what you were supposed to do in the midst of a fight.

But Scott was a lover not a fighter, and with Scott, Stiles was the same way. So they were at that awkward standstill.

Then Scott caught sight of Derek, and everything he was mad about hit him again. “Stiles what are you even doing here?” He gestured to the man who had not been briefed on the whole situation beforehand.

“What is he doing here?” Derek rumbled behind him, in complete displeasure.

Stiles could do this, he could figure things out, and he would just have to very quickly answer before they both started a fight. “Scott’s here because we need to uh speak about things…and I’m here because of a longer story.”

Scott crossed his arms in front of his chest, and made that glare/pouty/puppy face. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

_

Derek decided that he would use this time to evaluate and repair the damage done to his house. Also, seeing as before they left, they (Derek) stuffed half of the broken mattress as a makeshift door, and as it clearly wasn’t that swell of a block, he made sure that if anything was stolen who had done so.

Scott on the other hand, started right in on Stiles without a moment’s pause. “Why didn’t you call me? Why do you only talk to Lydia? I mean, I don’t think you’re in love with her anymore right?”

Stiles didn’t know what to say, because anything that came out of his mouth would end up being offensive, or if he did lie and said he was still in love with Lydia it would send Derek into a jealous rage.

So he opted for the truth, because it was the best, even though he had been avoiding it for so many years. “Because you have…you have Allison, Scott. And that’s great, and I’m so happy for you, and you guys really deserve it and…”

Stiles wondered why he couldn’t speak, why he couldn’t form appropriate words to describe appropriate scenarios. He wasn’t some macho man who thought feelings didn’t exist-he was just Stiles. So why, why was this so hard?

He could probably blame it on a lot of things, a major one his mom being dead. But really, it was his entire fault.

“Were you jealous of Allison?” Scott was good at expressing himself, he used to be just okay, but he had gotten better. He was good at telling people how he felt about them, even though he had been through some shit too.

“No, well maybe, but mostly no. I just I just…your life is so awesome Scott, I just didn’t want to fuck it up.” Stiles’ breath was deep and shuttering, “I don’t want to tell you what happened, because it’s really messed up, but it’s done now.”

This quelled Scott a little more, and this time he was just hurt. “You think letting me not visit you, and not speaking to me would not fuck up my life?”

“You had Allison!” Stiles interjected quickly, “I thought she was enough!”

“I love Allison!” Scott roared his voice raising to a higher level, “I would die without her, but that doesn’t mean you’re not _important_ Stiles.”

There was silence. Stiles felt heat rush to his face, and he didn’t know whether it was from embarrassment or happiness. Because he remembered that in his teenage years he would get this flicker of panic that Scott would dump him that would say he didn’t need him anymore.

Stiles really just wanted to hear Scott tell him how important he was.

He could’ve said he was sorry, could’ve said that he would stay in touch from now on, that they would both be better, that he would tell him everything. But instead he smiled a little and spoke, “I missed you, man.”

Then, everything was okay.

Scott pulled him into a hug, which was actually just a quick pat on the back then release, because Stiles and Scott didn’t really go around hugging. Then Scott grinned back at him, a grin that implied he knew exactly what Stiles meant, and that no more needed to be added.

Because they didn’t need some bravo apology, some grand finale, they just needed to know in their own way, that things were back to normal.

“I missed you too, dude.” Scott was calmer, significantly calmer, and in that state he was less likely to kill Derek, and more likely to think rationally. So he looked over at Derek in the kitchen who was trying to repair the destroyed counter, and decided that there was no way he was listening (which Stiles figured out later he actually was), and brought up that matter.

“You know, a lot of times you told me not to go after Allison, and I did anyways.”  He started, and even when Stiles tried to interrupt he hurriedly cut him off, “but eventually even though you knew our relationship would be screwed up, you decided to help us.”

Stiles nodded, “Well you guys were like Romeo and Juliet, minus the double suicide and with supernatural creatures.”

Scott’s smile widened, but then his serious voice turned back on, “what I’m trying to say is. Uh. I owe you one.”

It wasn’t approval, it wasn’t acceptance, but it was tolerance. Stiles could handle tolerance for now; he could live with only tolerance. In fact, he was pretty sure that both Derek and him were just moved into the acceptance state.

Scott raised his eyebrows, “Are you sure though? I mean do you really want to get into this?”

This moment Stiles would remember. Because this, this right here was where he would have to make his decision. If he said yes, then he would be for sure agreeing to this, to be in a thing with Derek. If he said no right now, that would be fine, Scott would take him home with him and he would probably never see Derek Hale again in his life.

But whether it was Derek’s telepathic voice, or just Stiles’ own in his head it urged him not to think too much, not to be such a Stiles. It just told him so softly, what he needed to say, what he wanted to say. _Yes. Just say yes._

“Yeah. Yes. I am.”

_

The next three hours passed in a whirlwind. Derek and Scott shook hands, and Scott tried to look as menacing as possible, but probably in the next two days he would be suggesting the idea for a double date. Which was a horrible idea, probably the worst idea in history.

Then once Scott had left to check a motel room, Derek and Stiles had nice and long shower sex.

There was nothing better than that, to feel Derek kiss his back with wet hair tickling his neck and leave bite marks along his shoulder blades. He wrapped his arms around Stiles’ stomach and steady him when his hands slipped along the wall as Derek’s thrust were hard, and that rough Stiles’ missed from before.

Derek whispered dirty things into his ear the entire time, so different from hours before where it had been gentle and slow, this time he was trying not to slide, and this time relentless, taking all he could get. When Stiles looked down he could see come and water running down his legs, and not caring one single bit.

They stayed in there for what seemed like forever, until the air was becoming thin with that humid condensation. Derek didn’t give Stile a towel when they got out; just lead him over to the now makeshift repaired bed.

Derek pushed Stiles onto his back and Stiles made a complaint that was something like, “are you serious? No towels, and now this.”

But Derek just told him to shut up, and Stiles did when he stuck three fingers inside. He wanted to feel, see how wide he left Stiles, and feel the stretch he had created. So he kept them in there moving them in and out just to see what he had done.

Then Stiles whined, and Derek fucked him one last time. This time quick, with no pause between, and came inside unlike all of the times before. He got Stiles to, shortly after, just slid his thumb over the slit and gave him one pump.

Stiles jokingly complained about how he had just taken a shower, and Derek just completely ignored him.

It was kind of nice.

_

Stiles didn’t wish he could end this with a ‘they live happily ever after’. That was too far into the future; he didn’t want to think about then. When he did, he started to doubt everything that was happening. It was almost the same as when he started to think about the past.

So as he tried not to break Derek’s makeshift bed, and felt that after-glow state take over, Stiles came to another revelation.

That maybe living in the past and thinking too far into the future wasn’t what he should have done. Maybe he should have been living in the now, in the present, and not worry so much. Maybe he should have been doing that all along.

And maybe, maybe as he felt blissed out, and was almost falling off the bed, and knew that Derek was about to fall asleep aside him, maybe he should start living in the now.

Maybe.  
  
  
  



End file.
